Aftermath
by jkgnyc
Summary: In the Aftermath the dust settles. EO
1. Chapter 1

PROLOGUE

::::::::::

People say that miracles happen everyday.

Marketed as unexplained phenomenons, highly improbable, extraordinary events, everyday people cling to the notion of them, hoping they'll be mercifully granted one in their moment of deepest despair.

Olivia doesn't believe in miracles.

At least she doesn't think she does. There have been moments in her life that could certainly be characterized as such. Surely people of faith would describe the outcome in both the beach house and at the granary as godly-acts. But she knows better.

Death is a lot of things, but it does not discriminate.

She doesn't know why she's thinking about this now, of all times. Maybe because he is standing in front of her right now. She thought she'd die before she ever saw him again.

 _His eyes are the same_ , she thinks. Though it's hard to tell with absolute certainly, even with him this close to her. Her vision has tunneled. His figure is blurry.

They buried him three months ago. She stood next to his kids, she held Maureen against her chest as they lowered him into the ground.

But here he is standing in front of her defying all odds, defying God. He looks solid and hard, and so lifelike. Her fingers itch to touch him.

He's saying something to her, though she can't quite understand what it is he's trying to tell her. It must be important. Important enough to raise him from the dead.

 _Who the hell did we bury?_

He's wearing that old leather jacket of his. The jacket still fits. Even after all this time.

 _He should be more angelic-like,_ she thinks. His face should be free of all its prior pain. Instead he looks worn-down and tired. His eye looks swollen and red, too.

She reaches out and he immediately steps towards her, encroaching upon her. She places her shaking hands on his shoulders, awkwardly attempting to steady herself. She eyes his chest. Her palm leaves his shoulder and moves lower, coming to a stop against the soft white material that covers his heart. _Here._ This is where the bullet entered. This is where the final blow was given to him. This is where blood seeped from him.

She's imagined it a hundred times: him bleeding out, alone, on a dirty concrete floor. It happened across the bay somewhere in New Jersey. She wasn't there.

Olivia slams her eyes shut at the images she's manifested into likeness, of his lifeless body laying in a pool of his own blood. She always assumed they'd go together; that way it wouldn't hurt so much.

She's losing her mind. When she comes to, surely she'll wake up strapped to a hospital bed.

"Olivia."

She can feel the timber of his voice in her toes; the syllables of her name echo through her in waves.

"Olivia, open your eyes! Look at me!"

She won't look at him. She can't handle him dying again.

"Olivia, look at me! We have to go, we have to get out of here!"

His grip on her shoulders, the urgency in his voice startles her enough for her eyes to snap open.

"Olivia, it's not safe for you here. We have to leave. Now!"

His eyes are burning holes into her skin. She wants to melt in the presence of their hot and purposeful gaze.

Her hands tingle painfully. She drops them, shakes them violently, attempting to bring the blood back to her limbs. Her mind is spinning, her vision is tunnels more.

She feels his hands frame her head, the pull of his eyes seeking hers. It's futile to fight it, so she lets herself have this one moment. It could be her last.

Her reflection in his dark irises unnerves her. Her mouth hangs open in disbelief. She feels her head shake left to right, then again, and once more.

 _This isn't real. He's not real._

Her eyes return to his, desperate for an answer.

"How?" She asks, her voice barley a whisper.

He's talking to her again, but she can't make sense of it. Her temple burns, her head is too hot. _It's too hot in here._

She feels his hands grab at her, trying to steady her, cradle her as she begins to slip.

Then she is surrounded by darkness.

:::::::::

tbc.


	2. Chapter 2

It feels early, too early.

Olivia rustles against the soft texture of her bed sheets and burrows in deeper.

Her phone chirps next to her, and she sighs heavily into her pillow, sleep still bellowing her subconscious. Olivia sneaks a quick glance at the clock on her nightstand and confirms that it is in fact, too early to rise on her day off.

She squints hard, holding onto the last moments of sleep before giving in, grabbing her phone from the nightstand next to her.

She stares at the screen trying to focus her sleepy eyes on the information it carries.

It's Amaro, letting her know that the Kelly girl is awake and ready to give her statement.

Last night was rough.

It wasn't until almost 2am that she finally crossed over the threshold of her apartment. She smiled when found Lucy sleeping peacefully, sprawled out on her couch. Olivia quietly woke her, and thanked her repeatedly for staying so late, before thrusting some extra cash into the girl's hand.

She sits up, and digs the palms of her hands into her eye sockets, rubbing the sleep out. Multicolor dots momentarily float in her line of vision then quickly disappear.

She feels exhausted.

She knows she's not the only one who feels this way.

Times are far from easy for her squad. The secondary affects of the job are hitting them hard this year. Even if she doesn't outwardly admit it she recognizes it in the slight bitterness of Nick's voice, the isolation in Amanda's gaze.

The detectives who seek employment in one of the NYPD's most prestigious squads are never without their own scars, their own stories, their own haunted pasts. There's enough unclaimed baggage laying throughout the one-six that even the slightest misstep could send any one of them tumbling downward to lay amongst the carefully encased insecurities and violent images that hold stake in their subconscious.

The distraction from personal reality is welcomed in a morbid way. The ability to help those inflicted in the most horrendous of circumstances has its moments of celebration and gratitude.

The job brought Noah to her, and for that, for the love she has for that little boy, she is forever grateful. He saved her life. She'll tell him that someday when he's old enough to understand. When he's old enough to hear about his past, about their marred journey to each other. Before him, most days throwing a rapist in jail was enough. Before him, some days it was a struggle to get out of bed.

A small noise from the baby monitor pulls her from her pre-dawn contemplations.

She swings her legs to the side of her bed and makes her way into the hallway, quietly peaking into Noah's room. She reaches for her robe that lies haphazardly on a chair in his nursery, and wraps it around her shoulders before tightening it around her waist.

He's sleeping peacefully, and the image warms her from the inside out. She ducks out quietly and tiptoes the short distance to her kitchen.

The sun begins to slowly brighten her living space as the rich brown liquid runs into her mug. It steams, and the aroma heightens her senses.

She returns to the overstuffed chair in Noah's nursery, coffee in hand and pulls a blanket over her bare legs. She doesn't want to disturb his slumber, but she's excited about the day she's planned for them. She wants it to start as soon as his eyes open.

::::::::::

It's a beautiful early spring afternoon. The trees are beginning to sprout new leaves; blades of grass are emerging from the hardened gray clay near her home. She loves the city so much, but the winters are rough. The March sun warms her face and she pulls her scarf off her neck, and tucks it away next to her water and latest novel. The small beads of sweat on the nape of her neck instantly chill. She pulls her phone from her pocket to check her messages. According to Fin, they've started a canvas near the victim's dorm room at Hudson. She's identified her attacker and they're close to an arrest.

It's someone the poor girl knows.

" _Everything's under control,"_ Fin adds _, "We got this."_

She tucks her cell back away in the contents of her tote and lazily continues south down 2nd Ave. and finally across 7th towards Tompkins Square Park. It's quiet a distance from her home in Riverside Park, but she doesn't mind the walk on such a beautiful afternoon.

She feels the street fair before she sees it; music vibrates off the neighborhood buildings several blocks before the entrance.

Over the last 20 years she's watched the magnitude of change encompass this once less than desired but deeply loved areas of the city. In its prime, Tompkins Square Park, offered a welcomed respite from the noise and heat of city streets, a place to breathe fresh air after long hours spent in factories and tenement kitchens. It was a place to enjoy festivals, to socialize with neighbors, and for children to run and play. Open to all comers, it was a crucial centerpiece of neighborhood life in the East Village, a place of solitude for many.

By the early 1990s it's luster and sense of togetherness had become a memory. Garbage stuck to the dry decaying shrubs that bordered the entrance and next to its defining historical monuments. The sidewalks wore layers of graffiti, and dozens of homeless encamped on the browning grass in tents, and under withering trees. Blanketed by the carpet of night addicts roamed the ten acres of pathways restlessly, searching for their next fix.

In it's closure, riots erupted on the streets. Acting on impulse, protesters spilled onto Avenue A, where they started fires and pelted police cars and officers in riot gear with glass bottles.

They had no warning; no inclination that what was once there would be taken. Neither consulted nor informed, the city swooped in and sectioned off the landscape to the neighborhood. One day it existed, and in the next it was unavailable to those who sought its solitude. The Band Shell, a statement of its former glory, the staple of the park came down in a cloud of dust.

Olivia stares at the families relaxing on the grassy lawns, blankets beneath them. Frisbees dot the sky, children are laughing, playing as their parents look on.

In that moment she is reminded that darkness always precedes light. The past always gives way to the future. Even a piece of land, a neighborhood, can be reborn.

She's more outwardly reflective these days, contemplates the trajectory of her life more often. She thinks about the events and people who have shaped her into the Detective, Sergeant, and woman she is now. She misses Cragen's wisdom and unyielding support. She thinks of Munch, Melina, Casey and Alex often and hopes they have found some type of ease away from the violence. Together they've all looked death in the face and lived to talk about it. They grew together in this unit, and their comradery still sits solid within her. She has a good squad, but she misses them.

She thinks about leaving sometimes, like they all did. She wants more time with her son. But this job is a large part of her, and when the time comes to leave it will be difficult. It's not a decision she's ready to make yet. She still has things she wants to do.

She understands Elliot's ability to walk away from the job more and more now. He had a family to think about, people waiting for him at the end of each day. Though through much of their partnership it never seemed to be enough to keep him from the cases, from her.

It's been five years since they've spoken. Five dark, exhausting years.

There are so many things she's shared with her shrink. But her partnership with him isn't one of them.

She can talk to Lindstrom about Lewis, about the paralyzing fear of almost being raped, of having the barrel of a gun aimed at her forehead, of being scarred by the hot metal of her own house keys. But the pain of losing her partner is still so buried within her that she holds it deep, deep within. It is hidden away from analysis, from the truth, from the monsters in this world, from the light.

Before recently, he had only floated through her mind randomly at times in the days, weeks, and months following her kidnapping and assault. Truthfully, she didn't have the space anymore. Her attack and subsequent recovery had filled her completely. The grief had buried itself into another box, another hole within her soul. It was now just another a layer that covered her heart.

The sun is hiding behind the skyscrapers on the west side of the island when Olivia takes stock around her. The park is still humming with activity. Noah is peacefully gazing at his surroundings, enchanted. She holds him tighter in her arms. Balloon vendors twist colorful tubes of air into giraffes, and turtles. Groups of people form half circles around young break-dancers as they flip, spin, and twist their bodies to the delight of the crowd, and then hustle them for tips.

She can't help but think about him now, about where he is in the world.

 _Are they on the same island? Are they both outside enjoying the warmth of this unusually mild spring day? Is he happy? Is he a Grandfather? Does he sleep through the night now? Do his eyes still hold the same intensity?_

Her phone suddenly pulls her from her thoughts. It's Fin.

 _We got a problem. Need you at the house._

She closes the message, exhaling loudly to herself in frustration before dialing.

"Hey Lucy, hey. It's Liv –"

::::::::::

There are things about her that are fuzzy to him now. Years and simple moments slip in and out of their chronological timeline and he can't place them.

What was the name of her favorite bodega stand nestled on 8th a few blocks from her apartment?

Her perfume, it had a slight hint of jasmine, and what else? Amber?

When she cut her hair short the second time, how long did it take to grow until it rested at the peak of her shoulders? Nine months? A year?

When was it that he realized the small vertical scar on her neck would always be slightly raised and discolored from her rest of her bronzed skin?

"Dad!" He hears Maureen's voice carry through the backyard over the sizzling grill. The brats are almost done, one more turn and he can settle himself in a lawn chair with a cold beer and relax. The twins are home from college, and today is a celebration. It's been ages since the last time he's been in Queens, even longer since they've had their whole family together. He hears his children's laughter from the opposite side of the patio, and he realizes how much he's missed them. How much he's missed their energy and their optimism for what life holds. Soon it'll be a new chapter for Dickie and Elizabeth, and in turn it's a new chapter for him.

After being away for years the relaxed atmosphere feels foreign to him, almost unsettling. Nobody is upset, nobody is yelling, there is no resentment, or accusations. For once there is peace, understanding. Its going to take some getting use to. He hates to think his absence has allowed this to transpire, but here they are. His family is happy. Hell, they are celebrating. That's enough to justify his decisions, his leaving.

What a difference a few years can make. The dust has settled.

He can feel Maureen behind him, the tips of her toes are touching the heels of his sneakers as she peers over his shoulder.

He's relaxed in his t-shirt and blue jeans, the kevlar vest and military uniform he'd dawned daily while on assignment in the Middle East are pushed to the back of his closet in Brooklyn where he now resides full-time. He's been back in the states for 3 weeks and he's almost acclimated to his new sleep schedule, to the sounds of the city streets. It's a weird feeling to not always feel on edge, to be able to trust his surroundings. He had been a Marine once, but he had never worked a stint as long as this. Images of sand and cargo vehicles still flash under his eyelids each night as he prepares for sleep. It's going to take time to readjust, but for the first time on a long time he doesn't feel suffocated by the thought. He's got time.

"How they looking?" Maureen asks curiously and hungry.

"Bout' done." He responds. "Grab that tray for me will you baby?" He pushes the spatula into a random link to test if it's cooked all the way through. Juice oozes from the opening at the top, but it no longer feels rubbery. Satisfied that he won't poison their guests he turns to her, and catches her smiling.

"What?"

"Nothing." Her smile widens. "It's just really good to have you here Dad. We've missed you."

She hands him a cold beer, and begins to remove the meat from the grill. He steps to the side watching her. Her hair is shorter than when he left, she's grown out her bangs, and it all fits perfectly into a loose ponytail at the nape of her neck. Her face is more defined, her soft features have disappeared over the last few years, and she has more laugh lines around her mouth.

She is a woman now, and he missed it.

"Now it's my turn to say, what?" She's smiling again. "Is there something on my face? Mustard? Potato salad?"

She turns her attention from the grill to him.

"You look so much like your mother."

She smiles widely.

"And you." She quickly replies. "It's the eyes. Mom says I have the Stabler glare down pat."

He laughs then before moving to her side to place the remaining brats into the tray she holds firm in her fingers.

"Logan!" she calls out over her shoulder.

The little boy runs over and clutches her legs just below the knees.

"Grandpa, needs help carrying things to the picnic table. Can you carry the Ketchup?"

The boy's face lights up as his focus zeros on Elliot.

"PA!"

Elliot hands him the plastic bottle, his face matching the little boy's enthusiasm.

"Race you!" the boy yelps. Before Elliot has a chance to register the challenge Logan is sprinting towards the tables. For the first time in far too long Elliot laughs. He dimples easily reaching all the way to his eyes.

::::::::::

"Here."

It's close to 10 when the bustle of the backyard is finally silent. He's sitting on the steps of his family's patio looking at the fence that separates their life from their neighbors.

 _The landscaping needs some work_ , he thinks as he silently compares the yard parallel to them.

He takes the beer Kathy is offering, and sets down the lukewarm bottle he's been nursing for the last hour.

"Thanks."

She settles in next to him, an old gray NYPD sweatshirt covers the top of her yellow sundress. He recognizes it; he used to wear it, a lifetime ago. It's been an unseasonably warm day, but with the sun down his t-shirt feels inadequate. The beer helps.

"How you holding up?" Her question is genuine, and he can spot the effects the glasses of wine she's ingested tonight on her features. There's an ease to her that is unfamiliar. He likes it.

He inhales deeply next to her, thoughtfully thinking before speaking.

"I'm ok. Still adjusting, but ok." For once what he is telling her is the truth. He can't remember the last time he's done that.

She nods.

"Have you heard anything from The Bureau?"

He shakes his head.

"I've put in my time there, not needed anymore."

She nods slightly, agreeing before she takes a long sip from her wine glass. Her lips are slightly stained, and he likes that this isn't her first, or second glass. He likes that she's indulged tonight. She deserves to let go.

"You did a good thing, Elliot. Nobody faults you for that." She pauses. "Nobody _here_ faults you for that."

"Kath..."

"No." she says shaking her head.

"At the time I hated you for leaving, I'm going to be honest with you about that."

"I know."

He takes a swig of his beer sensing she has more to say.

"You've missed a lot."

It's an obvious statement that hits him square in the chest. He can do nothing but agree.

"I know."

"But you're here now. And despite how we got here things are good. Things are really good."

He knows she's right.

"I do have regrets…." He doesn't finish his admission. He doesn't need to.

Now it's her turn to agree. "I know."

A few moments of comfortable silence settles between them.

"I missed Logan being born. I missed them growing into adults, I missed… " He takes another swig before facing her. "I missed so much." It's a statement not a question. He knows what he had given up in order to right his life.

"You were savings lives."

He scoffs.

"Don't dismiss what you were doing Elliot. Doing that is a disservice to you _and_ us."

She softens before she continues.

"It was hard, but eventually we understood. I don't want to lie and say it was easy, because it was not. There were times when I didn't know how any of us were going to come out without bitterness towards you and the job. But it happened. It happened. And now…"

He's staring at her waiting as she takes another sip of her wine.

"What?"

"Now we are just happy that you are alive, and that you are here." She looks at him purposefully. "That you will be a part of the rest of it."

He drops his head. He'd been selfish when he took the job with the Feds. His need to escape New York, SVU, his family, Olivia, all had consequences he didn't register at first. All he knew at the time was that he had to be different, be someone different. Someone he could look at in the mirror and not see the victims he couldn't save lying at his feet.

They haunted him even in his retirement from the squad.

"I don't deserve your understanding Kathy."

"You deserve to be happy."

He opens his mouth to refute, but there isn't use. Instead he drops his head lower.

She is a far better person than he is.

The faces of victims that use to permeate his subconscious are fuzzy now. The weight of them is lighter, they are fuzzy like his memories of Olivia. They are still tangible, but he can't place them.

He inhales sharply at the thought of her face. That imagine will never be anything but clear to him.

"Have you reached out to the unit?"

She's skirting around the real question and he respects her for beating around the bush, for not pushing it. Maybe she senses he's jut not ready to open old wounds.

"No."

She takes another sip of her wine, tipping it towards her mouth emptying it contents before standing.

"Don't take another five years, Elliot." She looks down on him pointedly. He doesn't look at her; he stares blankly ahead into the open yard.

"Don't leave them guessing any longer than you have. If I know anything for certain…" she takes a shaky breath. "I know it isn't fair to leave those who care about you in the dark. Reach out to them. They deserve to know you are ok, and that you are back."

She pauses looking towards the clear moon. Tonight there isn't a cloud in the New York Sky.

"She deserves to know you are ok."

He nods, accepting this truth. He owes Olivia an explanation. He owes her that and so much more.

"I will, " he promises.

He thinks about her often. He thought about her when he was on the other side of the world covered in particles of coarse golden sand. She's never left him. Her voice, the features of her face, her eyes; they swim in his veins.

Even now he's thinking of her while he's sipping a beer on the porch of his family's home, a few miles from her apartment. He briefly wonders if she is still at the same place.

Maybe he should call her.

"I'm going to call it a night. Don't stay out here all night, Elliot." Kathy plainly states before turning slowly.

He nods, acknowledging her.

"I mean it."

He chuckles at her slightly, before reaching over and grabbing another beer from the cooler.

He hears the patio door slide shut behind him and he takes a deep solid breath.

Maybe he _should_ call her.

He instantly scoffs at the idea. What would he even say?

"Um hey, Liv, it's me, your old partner. Yeah well I know I haven't returned your calls for the last 5 years, but ya know, how are ya? Free for coffee at that place we used to like?"

He flicks the bottle cap into a nearby trashcan from where he sits, and lifts the mouth of the bottle to his lips. The cool liquid feels good against the scratchiness in his throat. The liquid pools in his stomach.

He knows he is far from being the perfect man. He's made enough mistakes to last a lifetime. He failed as a husband, son, a father. He's in a better place personally about those regrets now, but his failures to her and to their partnership still cause an unbelievable ache in his chest.

He knows how he got here, he just doesn't know how to fix it. He doesn't know how to fill the void. It would be a fool's errand to seek her out now. It's been too long. Still the pit in his stomach relents.

He tips his chin towards the carpet of night that's settling over his family's house.

The moon shines brightly in its fullness, overshadowing the dim lights from street lamps above.

He settles his gaze on it, admiring it's marked façade even from this great distance.

It's beautiful, he thinks. Even in it's imperfections, it shines. It shines brightly. It gives light to the all the dark the city can't reach. It's a beacon.

He wonders what she is doing at this moment _._

 _Is she leaning over her desk, where she used to sit across from him, working begrudgingly on overdue paperwork? Is her partner with her, making sure her coffee cup stays hot and filled? Is she smiling? Is she relaxing with a glass of wine on her couch pretending to watch TV with someone that brings her balance and happiness? Is she staring at the same moon? Is she laughing at its marred beauty?_

 _Does she realize that in all the years he's been away that it is still the moon that reminds him of her?_

::::::::::

 _tbc._


	3. Chapter 3

She shifts uncomfortably in her chair.

"What do you think the dreams mean, Olivia?" Lindstrom's voice is flat. Seemingly unaffected, but she can sense the surprise in his eyes.

She can't blame him, really. She's been seeing him for the better part of two years, and he hasn't heard much about her former partner. He may have sensed the loss, but he had never before heard it from her directly.

"I don't know," she confesses. "I thought that's why I paid you the big bucks. How about you save us the trouble and tell me what it means." She's teasing, and he knows. Her defense mechanisms have become very apparent to him in these several months leading up to this moment. She may be a tough New York City _Sergeant_ by day, but he can see it so clearly, it's almost as if she wears them on her proverbial sleeve.

"What is it about them that you remember the most?" He leans forward studying her.

She stays silent.

"These dreams," he continues, "Do they always take place in the beach house?"

"No." she confesses. But she doesn't give him anything else.

"What about in a place of significance to your relationship?"

 _Relationship._

She winces.

"No."

You know what I'm going to ask next…" He waits.

She exhales slowly. She has made so much progress in so many ways, but this…

"I don't know if I'm ready to go there yet."

It's a simple statement, and a powerful one. Lindstrom's eyebrows rise. It's been some time since she's refused to discuss her life to this extent. They've talked through her abandonment issues, her mother, Brian, the victims that weight heavy on her heart. But it hasn't ever gotten this far. She's never let him into this part of her.

"Olivia…" He starts. "You know we've been working together for a lengthy period of time, and though your relationship," her lips tighten at the word again, "has come up a handful of times, I've never heard you confirm what it was to you." He pauses again before continuing. "I've never even heard you say his name."

She retreats, physically closing herself off. She crosses her right leg over her left hastily, her arms fold against her chest, and she is suddenly more interested in the wall adjacent to her.

He waits.

She shifts in her seat once more before speaking.

"That's because I don't."

He pauses again, waiting for her to continue. She doesn't.

"Olivia, you brought them up. You obviously want to talk about him, about the hurt his absence has caused you… is that what the dreams are about?"

"The dreams aren't about anything," she mutters.

He watches as she focuses her eyes on the wall behind him, something he knows she does when she's uncomfortable, when she's going to reveal something she doesn't want to.

She continues, "Well, not really anyway." She stops to gather her thoughts, chewing her bottom lip.

"The first time it happened it was at the beach house. I ah… when I was there, with Lewis, when Lewis had me restrained, tied to the bed; I heard…" she lets out a forceful breathe before quickly expelling the last of her confession to him, "I heard his voice there, I remember hearing his voice." She squints her eyes at the dark memory, attempting to keep the images at bay.

"At the beach house, or in your dream?"

She casts her eyes from the wall down to her shoes.

"Both."

"What did he say to you?"

He recognizes he's in a precarious position with her in this moment, push too little and she won't open up, push too much and she'll shut down.

"He was um, he was telling me to stay awake, to, to keep my, my eyes open."

He pushes. "What else?"

"I could, I could feel him there with me." She looks up at him then, her eyes are glazed over, her temple wrinkled in thought.

"He was encouraging, yelling at me to try harder, to… to pull the bar harder, to keep breathing and to try harder to escape."

"Did you?"

She let's out a shaky breath. The confession sticks to her lips.

He waits and she draws in another deep breath before the admission.

"Yes."

He acknowledges her by nodding his head, but stays silent, an invitation for her to continue.

She drops her head into her hands covering her face. "This is so stupid. I know how stupid it sounds, how desperate…."

"Don't do that." His voice is soft, concerned.

She peaks through her fingers at him.

"Was he there with you, in the beach house?" He pauses and then continues when he hears her sign into her fingers.

"Yes," she gives.

He nods, trying to quell his reaction to her admission – he keeps the surprise hidden from his features. This is huge, but he shifts regardless.

"When did they first start? The dreams…. When did they first start?"

She straightens though still visually uncomfortable.

"A few weeks ago, I guess."

"And now…" he pauses. 'The dreams are different now?"

She nods slowly, her gaze vacant, transfixed.

"How so?"

"Now…. there isn't anything specific to them. I can't place where we are, or what we are doing. He is just there, next to me, sitting or walking. I can, I can hear him breathing, I can hear his pulse near me. That's it," she shrugs, "I can't even see his face."

"Do you want to?"

It's a simple question but his words poke at her in their directness.

She doesn't know what she wants.

He pushes.

"Olivia, in these dreams when he's next to you, do you want to see his face?"

She tries to hold the confession within her, but it protests, leaving her lips before she has a chance to stop it.

"Yes."

He pauses, shifts back into his chair.

"Tell me, about the last time you saw or spoke to him."

She unknowingly shakes her head and she can feel the memories undust themselves from within. She sighs loudly. She has to do this, she knows she _has_ to find some sort of closure but damn it if she wants to.

She hesitates another moment and decides to push through. If she is going to get anywhere, make any sense of his sudden interruption in her life she knows she has to do this.

She _has_ to go there.

She _has_ to do this.

She lets out a heavy breath before recalling the events that occurred that day.

"He has just shot a girl, a teenage girl. Her mother had been raped and murdered, " she pauses. "Murdered in front of her."

She stops thoughtfully. The events of that evening so long ago still tangible, never forgotten. No matter how intended she was to bury them.

"She walked into the squad with a gun, and just…." She runs her hands through her hair and down her neck. She moves her head from side to side giving herself a moment. Restless she stands and begins to pace back and fourth in front of her chair slowly.

"Her mother's rapist was in the bullpen, he goaded her, and she shot him," her voice is cracking now, "she shot two other people that were near the suspect. Another person involved in her mother's death, and a Nun." Her body halts. "And then… he, he shot her."

Her gaze moves to Lindstrom checking his reaction. It's neutral. She hasn't outwardly shaken him just yet. She lets her eyes stay fixated on his face as she continues, "He had to. She would have hurt others." Lindstrom nods, accepting her excuse of his actions. "He shot her in the stomach, and she died right there, bled out, next to him. Right next to Munch's desk."

She had given her account dozens of times in the days following the incident. Tucker was there.

"Wow, Olivia. That must have been an extremely traumatic thing to witness."

"He tried to apply pressure, but it, um, it was just, there was nothing he could do, ya know?"

She feels herself calming after her vocal admission. It's been so long since spoken about the day that final put an end to them.

"Did you talk to him after?"

She shakes her head.

"That was it? After the shooting he was gone?"

She sits back down. It takes her several seconds to find her voice.

"He um, found me in the locker room after the bodies had been zipped up and taken to the morgue. I was, at the sink, scrubbing my hands." She takes her hands off her lap and mirrors their actions to mimic her memory.

The emotion in her voice is giving way, and she can feel the wetness on her face now. It's made its way pass the brim of her eyes, spilling over. It collects just above her cheeks, but her stubbornness is mercifully holding out, refusing to allow them to fall down the length of her face.

"He came up behind me, and grabbed them. He grabbed my hands and scrubbed them."

Lindstrom leans back into his chair taken back, but still completely engrossed in her words.

"He washed the blood from your hands?"

She nods slowly in recognition and purses her lips. Her face feels hot. Her tears are falling now, but not in a way that's hurried or regretful. Each drop lands solid on its own, unwilling to join the masses as they roll downward. She doesn't have the will to wipe them or hide them. So she lefts them settle on her cheeks and grants immunity to the ones that fall farther down her face, and down her neck.

She clears her throat.

The heaviness of the moment isn't lost on him. Olivia giving him so much detail from a moment that happened four years ago. He realizes with a heavy heart that she's lived isolated in it for far too long. She's replayed it countless time. His heart aches for the woman sitting in front of him.

"What happened next?" He's leaning forward again, his elbows resting on his knees.

"I remember doing the same. I grabbed his hands, and I, washed Jenna's blood off of him."

Now he's on the edge of his seat.

"And then..."

She laughs hoarsely and pulls her breath through her nose dramatically. It's been years. Years. And here she is allowing the images back into the forefront of her mind. Details are undusted from her subconscious. His hands. She remembers his hands. Faded scars covered his knuckles, the tips of his fingers were calloused and rough, but their movements gentle in their purpose.

"And then… and then he looked at me in the mirror, and then he… turned around and," she sighs, "he… he left."

"You never saw him again?"

Surely that cannot be, he thinks.

She shakes her head confirming his denial.

"Did you reach out?"

She laughs again.

"I'll take that as a yes." He sits back in his seat, and lays his palms on the armrests, taking in the surroundings around her. She sits now with her shoulders slumped, her bangs drape softly over her eyes. He doesn't have to see them to know they are red. She is fidgeting with her fingers. She looks like the light has been removed from her. The heaviness in the room is thick. He knows she is waiting for him, but truthfully he doesn't know what to say to her.

Her voice saves him.

"You know, I knew he'd be forced to take leave, that I would be on my own for awhile, but I never expected him to leave – _that_ I never expected."

"You said you'd be on your own... is that how his absence left you feeling?"

She nods slowly and bites down on her lower lip a little lost in her sudden surroundings.

"Do you feel that way now?"

She wipes under her nose and shakes her head.

"No. Well… not really anyway. I have so much to be thankful for. I have Noah. I have a life now; I'm not in the same place I was when he left. I am happy. I just don't understand." Her words are coming more quickly now, expelling from somewhere deep within her.

She stands again. Paces.

"I just don't understand how this is happening now! Why? Why now?"

She wipes at her nose again. Her face is flush. She feels uncomfortable, hot, restless.

She wants to run out of the room, out of the space that she's allowed her old partner to permeate.

"Olivia. It's ok to miss him."

Her eyes snap up and she stares him directly in the eye.

 _There,_ she thinks. _He said it._

 _Someone had to._

She slowly sinks back into her normal spot across from him, and lets out a heavy sigh. Her gaze tilts to the ceiling and she can see all the lumpy spots of spackle that dot its outer coating. She counts them silently in her mind, and soon she feels her lungs fill with more ease, her mind is stilling, her eyes stop leaking.

She hears his words relay in her ears.

 _It's ok to miss him._

She pulls her gaze downward and finally looks Lindstrom in the eye. She stares at him for a long, long time before speaking again.

 _It's ok to miss him._

"Elliot." She forces through her teeth.

She takes a shaky breath against Lindstrom's widening eyes.

"His name is Elliot."

::::::::::

It's Sunday and the sky is unyielding in its bravado. The sun is losing its battle with the horizon. Pink and orange beams of light rest upon the clouds fighting the looming darkness. Bead of sweat cover his forehead as Elliot pulls the last of the dead fern from Kathy's fence line. She had mentioned the dreary appearance of the plant a week earlier at the BBQ and he took it upon himself to remove the sad shrub. A cool breeze signals the incoming dusk and it's welcomed. He pulls the last of the roots from the dry soil and tosses them into the nearby trashcan with the rest of its parts. He hears the door behind him slide open and recognizes Kathy's light footsteps closing in on him from the yard.

"Thank you." She says handing him a beer.

He takes it gratefully and twists off the cap in his palm before taking a long refreshing swig from the bottle.

"Don't mention it. Happy to do it."

She crosses her arms across her chest to ward off the slight chill that accompanies the fading sunlight.

He feels the air around her tense slightly. It's sudden, but he feels the shift.

"When you were gone, something happened." Her profile is pointed upwards, the luminary shadows from their neighbor's roof are casting downward over her eyes, he can't place the emotion but he knows it's serious.

"What do you mean, something happened," he asks cautiously.

She signs, hesitating, searching for the words to tell him.

"Kathy, tell me."

"It was bad Elliot. And I wanted to tell you, but you were overseas and I didn't want to mess with your head. I didn't want to jeopardize what you were doing there, the good you were doing there, I knew… I knew how important it was. How important what you were doing was."

She's skating around it, feeling guilty, not sure how to bring the words from her throat. What ever it is it's going to piss him the hell off, he can feel it.

"Just say it." He takes another sip after he speaks he speaks, his chest is hard, there's a lump of dread in his stomach.

"I should have told you when you first got home, but you seemed to be back to some sort of normal, and I didn't want to mess that up, and then last week when we talked about you reaching out to the squad I didn't," she takes a deep breath and turns her gaze to the grass below her bare feet, " I didn't want you to find out that way."

"Kathy!"

"I kept the articles, all of them. They are in the bottom draw of the desk in the living room." Her speech is quick and deliberate. She's thought about how to tell him so many times before this moment.

"I didn't know how to tell you, so I kept them. It's fucked up, I know… you'll think it's fucked up to when you read them. Just go. Go read them. Everything is there."

"What are you talking about?"

She says nothing.

"Kathy!"

"I should have told you, and I didn't. We can talk about that more, but not tonight Elliot. Just read them. I've kept you from it long enough."

She turns then and walks up the porch steps and disappears through the sliding glass door that separates their backyard from the living area where his children once lived, the place he'd called home for more than two decades.

::::::::::

He drinks two more beers. And not the shitty Miller Lights that are in the cooler but the stronger IPAs he had hidden in the bottom of the icy water.

Whatever Kathy had alluded to during their talk has him stirring. A million thoughts race though his mind. It had to be about the squad. Apart from his kids, nothing else would have affected him so deeply that she would think he would leave his post 5,000 miles away and rush home. It had to be about the squad.

Then it hits him square in the chest.

It had to be about Olivia.

There's a phantom vice around his throat. It burns. The realization instantly eliminating the ability to breathe.

He desperately wants to know. He desperately needs to be alone when he finds out. Eyes on him are not what he needs. But, there she is, her face and body is so clear it's tangible on the ground in front of him. She's bleeding. She's dying. Her fingers are clutching her neck. She can't breath either.

He is reaching for the sliding glass door before he takes stock in his actions.

He strides through the living space to the worn brown desk in the corner. He is riffing through the drawer now, pulling out old medical records and bills before his eyes catch a newspaper clipping peaking out from a manila folder.

He is thankful for so many reasons that his children are tucked safely away from this. This is going to hurt him. He knows it. He doesn't need witnesses.

He carefully lifts the folder and it's contents out of the deep drawer and walks back outside to the patio table next to the grill, farthest from the door.

He doesn't bother to sit. He can feel her. She's coursing through him among the platelets and plasma.

His eyes register her face first. "Olivia." He says aloud. "Olivia!" the second time he says her name it's more for a plea. Her name rubbles through his chest with every syllable. It's been so long since he's said her name. The symbols feel foreign on his tongue.

There are so many articles. He scans then feverishly searching for answers. His body is hard; the tension is rolling off him in waves.

 _It was bad._ Kathy's words replay within him.

He sees the headlines then, as he scatters the clippings on the surface of the glass table.

" _SVU Detective Taken by Suspected Serial Rapist, Still Missing."_

" _Manhunt Underway for William Lewis."_

" _Terror on Long Island, More Bodies, Lewis Manhunt Continues into Day 3."_

He pieces it together. She was taken. Wait. She was taken, and missing for three days? _She was fucking kidnapped._

He shuffles violently through the remaining articles.

" _SVU Hero Cop Found ALIVE!"_

" _SVU Detective Rescued from Beach House, Ending Four Day Kidnapping Terror."_

His gaze zeros in on the last article he now clutches in his hands, the image sears into him.

"Olivia!"

She has a blanket over her shoulders; someone out of the frame is holding it place. Her lip is cut, and even though the image is black and white he can see the dark discolorations marked on her face and chest. She looks helpless, lost, disconnected. There is no emotion in her eyes. It's eerie to see her like that. The picture terrifies him. She looks like she's seen a ghost.

 _Who the fuck was William Lewis?_

He wants to find him and put a bullet in-between his eyes.

He slams his fist on the table, it raddles under the sudden pressure.

He takes a step back and inhales an audible shaky breath, tearing his eyes from the clippings.

 _Olivia. Olivia. Olivia._

She is all he can see. He can taste her name in his mouth.

There are more articles in the pile.

" _Suspected Serial Rapist William Lewis ESCAPES!"_

" _More Bodies in the Wake of Lewis, Manhunt Continues, No Leads."_

" _SVU Detective Olivia Benson On The Lamb, Search for Lewis Continues."_

" _A Grisly Scene in Red Hook, Lewis Killed by Hero Cop."_

" _Hero Cop Saves Little Girl, Ends Lewis' Terror."_

His mind is reeling.

 _Twice? This monster had her twice!_

" _Details Unfold in Red Hook, SVU Detective Forced to Play Russian Roulette as Little Girl Watched."_

He feels his vision tunneling. He can feel the blood moving upward. He hears nothing but the pounding in his mind. _Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump_. His heart is in his throat.

This is not what was supposed to happen. Not to her. This isn't fair.

He clutches his fists, the intensity is radiating into the open air through his pores. The images of her overwhelm him. Her face, covered in blood spray. Her dark eyes. Suddenly the table flips and lands loudly on its side, the photographic evidence of her attack flutters in the night air like confetti before resting softly at his feet.

Her suffering is splayed out in front of him. It's so fitting that he morbidly scoffs into the dark sky, then he is chucking as his guilt swallows him. This is on him. He left her alone. He left.

The glass tabletop shatters as it's forcefully kicked from the patio down the wooden steps that lead to the lawn.

He contents of his stomach, the beers, burn in his throat as he suddenly heaves over the railing. He's gagging. His body erupts in beads of sweat, his eyelashes are wet. It's uncontrollable; this feeling that is now violently decimating him. He is shaking. His hands are so unsteady he's unable to clutch the wood railing any longer. He pulls them to his sides as he straightens, then makes hard contact with top the panel. He feels his right knuckle break open and he knows his family will see his blood there in the morning.

He strikes it again and again. And again. He has got to get back into control. He knows this, but still his body betrays him.

Duty has betrayed him.

Honor has betrayed him.

And now God has betrayed him.

::::::::::

He comes her at night. Always in the night.

When her badge no longer rests on her belt, and her Sig is locked away.

She is defenseless against the memories, unguarded.

When she allows herself to think of him, it's always at night.

The water from the shower is lukewarm and she turns the faucet handle to the right decreasing the temperature.

A small shudder roles through her body as the icy water penetrates her skin from above. Her disclosure to Lindstrom earlier in the day has left her feeling raw and exposed. In the moments immediately after her confessions she felt relief. Like saying his name out loud, giving witness to it, to him, to them finally allowed her to breath. Now she just feels like shit.

The cold water isn't doing its job. It's not washing away the memories, not like it had in the early days of her recovery. She turns the faucet to the left, and feels momentary relief as the heat coats her skin, but it's short lived. She's back at the Beach House.

In the depths of her despair, he had come to her in the Beach House. Her hair was saturated with Vodka, and it mixed with her own sweat while it clung to her forehead. Dry blood crusted over open wounds on her left temple and upper lip. Her wrists were bruised and torn from her repeated attempts to free herself from the metal bar. She could still smell the stench of his dried salvia on the duct tape that covered her mouth.

She found herself in a moment of silence, of acknowledgment. Lewis had left to ditch the car, and she slammed her eyes shut as she tried to breathe. Ragged puffs of air hitched from her lungs, and her soft whimpers masked by duct tape, echoed through the now erringly silent space.

 _Breathe Liv._

She heard him, and obeyed, inhaling, slowly through her nose, air reaching her lungs and filling them to their capacity. Her head throbbed. She was so thirsty.

 _You have to breathe._

His voice was so soft, and distinct. The familiar cadence warmed her flesh, and she let out a deep shaky breath from her gut.

Her vision was clouded. She was unable to see nothing but the soft outline of his face. Her eyes moved rapidly, desperate to make contact with a piece of him she could recognize.

She searched for his eyes.

She was losing to the exhaustion, the dehydration. She had to be hallucinating. The outline of his face was suddenly gone now. Her body sank into the soiled mattress, supported only by her aching wrists. She felt herself losing consciousness. She was losing the fight, the will. She was so tired. Her vision tunneled.

 _Olivia!_

Her eyes snapped open. His harsh tone was achingly familiar. She had heard it before, countless times when together they faced danger. Her head wrenched up as her eyes scanned the room for him.

 _Listen to me, Olivia! You have to keep your eyes open. Do you hear me?_

She attempted to nod, but her eyes closed again.

 _Olivia!_

She willed her eyelids upward.

She scanned the room, expecting to find Lewis in the corner covered in three days worth of sweat, leering at her with rage and lust, her Sig in his grasp, the barrel pointed at her head. But the room was empty.

She tugged on the metal bar harder then, again, and again, and again.

Her wrist bled. Her body slipped off the side of the bed, the soles of her boots touched the hard floor and she's pulling harder leveraging her weight to force herself free.

 _Harder Liv! You've got to pull harder!_

Suddenly panic shoots up her spine, she hears the front door, and footsteps coming closer.

"Look at you. You going somewhere?"

She freezes, caught.

The will leaves her body as she feels the cuffs tighten around her wrists and her legs hoisted back onto the mattress. Her body bounces as it makes contact.

"Not without me you're not. I told you I would be right back!"

Her lips burn as he yanks the duct tape from her lips. Her mind is suddenly empty, her body numb.

Somewhere in the deep recesses of her mind she can hear him gloating on about the iron-framed bed, the house. How special this is. He walks out to finds scissors, something about cutting her clothes off, and when he returns the bile rises in the back of her throat.

Elliot's voice is gone now. Could it be that it was just a memory etched in her brain from the night she almost lost him in the warehouse?

Maybe she really was losing it, and he was never there at all.

"What's that look?"

Her eyes still, gloss over, the sadness is burning from her chest, her heart.

"Are you feeling sad?"

She prays that in some alternate reality Elliot is there. Maybe he is hiding in the walls. She doesn't want to die alone on this disgusting mattress. She didn't want to spend her last moments on this earth bleeding out from a probable gunshot wound while Lewis looks on. He had already taken so much. She wasn't going to give him anymore.

Her want for Elliot is so powerful. She wills his voice to speak again.

"Thinking about someone you're never going to see again?"

His face flashes in front of her eyes.

"Mom?"

"Dad?"

"Boyfriend?"

She feels the sharp edge of his weapon graze her calf as he unburdens her feet from each other.

"No, huh? It's someone else." Lewis smiles intrigued.

Her eyes sting - the gravity of the loss already so strong it's beginning to seep from her eyes.

"Someone who you would give anything to see, just one more time."

She flinches when she feels his lips on her arm after he crawls up the mattress. His breath is hot and heavy against her. It makes her skin crawl.

"You'll call out his name out at some point. They always do."

::::::::::

He's been walking for hours before he realizes how far he is from his family's home.

His first instinct was to find her, to pound on her door in the late hours of darkness and see for himself that she was alive. He needed to know she was whole, that breath filled her lungs. He needed to replace the images that now burned his mind. He wants to grab her, shake her for letting Lewis take her, he wants to scream at her for letting her guard down, for not being more careful.

Didn't she know that when her life was in jeopardy so was his?

 _Jesus. You're a fucking idiot. Of course she doesn't know that. You left her. She probably thinks you don't give a shit about her._

He had crossed through Middle Village when he realizes suddenly showing up at her apartment after being MIA for five years probably wasn't the best move. She didn't owe him shit. Doing that would make this about him, and it's been about him for way too long.

So he made a call to his handler.

The amount of information the FBI has at it's disposal is impressive, even more so in the middle of the night.

He flipped his intended direction and headed back to Queens. He grabbed his sedan from Kathy's driveway armed with information and drove East along I-495. He arrived in Bay Shore just as the sun was peaking from the horizon.

He knows he's in the right place when he spots the remints of tattered police tape on the siding near the entrance.

He stands now unsteady at the threshold of the beach house. Its surroundings are chilling and ambiguous, isolated even in the presence of other homes. It's quiet, too early in the season for families to be here.

Nobody lives here, he had asked his handler to pull the property tax records. He at least had the fortitude to do that.

The owner must have been unable to sell it after what happened here. His handler also told him the details.

Now armed with the disgusting actions that took place beyond the door in front of him he doesn't allow himself the luxury of thinking about what he is about to do. He slams his shoulder into the wooden door, instantly releasing it from the flimsy lock.

Once inside he is out of breath and nauseas. The place is dark. The few pieces of furniture are covered with cloth sheets. It smells of mold and stale air.

The walls are still covered in dark smudges of fingerprint powder.

He feels sick. The tension in the air around him is thick.

 _If walls could talk,_ he thinks.

He's at the threshold of the bedroom now, and he breathes forcefully through his nostrils as the rage within boils. He stops when he spots the bed. It's been cut up by CSU, holes are missing from it and he knows there must have been blood there.

Her blood was there once.

It scares him how calm he is at this moment. How he's able to walk over, lie down and align his body on the bed to match the way Lewis once restrained her.

She would have been lying just like this. He held her in this godforsaken place just like this. He can see her then. She is trembling as Lewis taunts her, pointing a gun to her face.

He realizes that he's losing his mind. He knows it and he doesn't care. He's going to breakdown again, here in the place were she had come so close to death. This is where he almost lost her, and it's fitting to him that this be where he fully comes undone.

He wonders if she begged for her life. He wonders what thoughts flashed through her mind as Lewis attempted to assault her.

She gives so much. She gives so much of herself away. Nobody ever gives anything to her.

Snapshots of her face from the newspaper articles are there now. He takes the horror into himself, wishing that by doing so he is taking it from her.

He stands then and walks over to the dresser in the corner of the room. He looks at himself in tarnished mirror that's /attached to it. Her eyes are there, and they are searing. He feels the heat on his skin. He's burning.

He pounds into its surface again, and again, and again before ripping it from the wall it rests against.

He's nothing but fury then. He's manic, raging.

"Olivia!" He is yelling her name. It echoes in his ears. His teeth have broken the skin on his lower lip, he can taste blood.

The sun is rising over the sleepy beach community. The heat of it is permeating the curtain-covered windows as he allows himself to implode.

He can hear plaster breaking as he shoves his fist through a wall; fragments of wood are flying as the dresser drawers break under the force of his might. He hears her name on his lips. The sweat his blurring his vision. The heat is engulfing his mind.

His last conscious thought as he tears the small room into an unrecognizable heap of broken furniture is that he won't have to clean up his destruction here.

Here, the aftermath of the storm within doesn't require covering up.

This place will no longer reflect what happened here. It will no longer live as a shrine to what she endured. He is going to decimate it, and in doing so hopefully he is riding her of the memories, wherever she is in this moment.

Dust is everywhere. It sticks to his sweaty skin. He doesn't let it settle.

He grasps the bottom of the iron-framed bed and flips it completely over before completely surrendering to his maddening grief.

::::::::::

She finds herself in Noah's nursery when she comes to. Her hair is still damp, her eyes feel dry and puffy. She paced the apartment for hours after her shower. It did nothing to rid the uneasiness she suddenly felt in her mind, in her heart. She watched Noah sleeping for hours, his face and light even breathing had soothed her, and eventually as the sun began to peak over the east side of Manhattan, she was mercifully granted a dreamless sleep.

She rises, pushing the night to the back of her mind and stands over Noah sleeping peacefully.

She needs to get ready for the day, Lucy will be here soon. But she is rooted in her stance, her eyes adoringly looking on the small child. His presence brings her back to the present. She brushes a strand of hair from his eyes before softly lifting him from bed and out of his sleep. She cradles him close to her as he slowly opens his eyes and softly bounces him against her.

"I love you," she whispers into his hair. "Mommy loves you so much, Noah."

She hears Lucy at the door, letting herself in and the brief moment is gone.

"In here," she replies to Lucy's call.

"You look tired. Everything alright? Did he keep you up last night?"

Olivia hands the Noah over to Lucy, and flattens the wrinkles out of her nightshirt.

"No. It's a case. I couldn't sleep."

Lucy nods understandingly, believing her lie.

"I got this, Liv. I can put a pot of coffee on while you get ready. It'll help."

Olivia smiles, and nods her head before heading to the bathroom.

"Coffee would be great. Thanks, Lucy."

This time when the water hits her body his face is gone.

::::::::::

He is home he realizes. He's back at his apartment in Brooklyn, though he's not sure how he got there. He knows he drove, but he doesn't remember the route he took, or how long it took him. It's early afternoon. The sun is close to the center of the sky. He can see it through the small window in his kitchen.

He slams the rest of his beer and reaches for the scotch he must have purchased on his way back from the beach house. His hands shake as he pours himself two fingers of the brown liquid. His knuckles are swollen and bloodied. He had taken a shower at some point, he doesn't remember that either. His hair is slightly damp. There is still reminisces of red in the creases of his fingers, under the beds of his fingernails.

He downs the contents of his glass and pours himself another one, downs it and pours another one.

His senses are quieting now.

He steps into his tiny bedroom and sets the glass on the night stand next to his bed before laying on top of the blankets.

Sleep instantly overtakes him and mercifully, he does not dream.

::::::::::

 _tbc_


	4. Chapter 4

Thank you so much for your wonderful reviews and support. I truly live for your responses. This takes place a week after Elliot's experience at the beach house.

Also, JD: Thank you. You are wonderful.

::::::::::

Olivia can't sleep, so she walks.

The wind is whipping roughly off the water and she clutches her sweater tighter around her waist, shielding herself from its force. Shielding herself from him.

Her efforts are futile.

She doesn't know what's happening inside of her, but it's something important. It's decimating in its importance to her.

This memory of him is decimating her.

It's been five days since she walked out of Lindstrom's office after giving the mother of all admissions willingly to him. She spilled her guts and displayed her slimy entrails in a pile on his coffee table.

 _This is what you wanted, right? See how messy they are?_

She still hasn't been able to put them back in their proper place within her. She drags them around with her; let's them hang from her. They trip her up, tangling around her limbs like tentacles. She feels raw and drained from being on display, from constantly watching where she steps. Each step against the hard pavement of the city streets, the hardwood floor of her bedroom, when she moves in and out of her unmarked sedan, must be conscious and deliberate, premeditated in thought and action. One miscalculation and she's on her way down. All it takes in one misstep.

A weight had been lifted from her when she uttered his name into the air of Lindstrom's office. It reverberated off the furniture; its significance saturated the space, dripped down the walls. Of all the secrets she unearthed in that room to Lindstrom, this was the most profound.

It had been so long since she allowed the syllables of his name to vibrate off her lips; not even Lewis had gotten that from her. It felt euphoric to say them out loud, to give witness to him. They proved his existence is not only present within her, but that he was in fact real, and breathing, and flesh, bone. He is so real he even has a name.

 _Elliot._

The syllables play throughout her mind a hundred times a day, in a hundred different ways.

She expected to feel a sense of relief in the immediate aftermath of her confession. And she had. It was only natural. What she hadn't expected was the want that followed.

She finds herself searching for him now. She holds the gaze of strangers as they hurry past her on the street. She stares too long at men who emerge from cabs near her. She scans the benches at the park her and Noah frequent, hoping to catch a sighting of the man she once knew.

She wants to see him. She wants to feel the searing effect of his gaze on her skin. She wants to hear him say all four syllables of her name, out loud and somewhere close enough in proximity that she can feel them ripple on her skin when the word leaves his mouth. She wants to stew against the shadows of his chiseled features. She wants him to see her; to allow the blue that surrounds his irises to meet the brown that surrounds hers.

She is still in denial, though. A small part of her thinks she'll be able to carry on with her life at some point in the near future. She thinks she'll be able to move-on, that the desire within her will eventually fade without a roasting climax. That she'll sleep a full night without his name leaving her lips in the restlessness of her sleep.

It's this small bit of disbelief that she clings to. So she allows him to haunt her. His breath, his eyes, the phantom smell of his leather jacket, his aftershave – they are all constant fixtures to her now. They are living things. They follow her. They walk through walls.

Her sneakers squeak as they slap forcefully against the payment of the walkway near her home. The wind is relentless as it slams against her cheeks. It turns them pink in its anger. Even the air is questioning why she would leave the comfort of her apartment, and her son, for this.

She's so angry with herself for feeling this way - for giving him another chapter in her story.

 _The selfish bastard,_ she thinks.

Their history is long and detailed in her mind. If she allows herself, she could recount every single moment of their bruised yesterdays.

 _Hasn't she dedicated enough pages to him already?_

The wind shoots across her again, relentless. It sends her brown strands across her face and she tries in vain to shield them from the opening of her mouth and her eyes. They stick to her now chapped lips and she bats them away bitterly.

She feels the urge to let go. To give into the force that's ablaze within her. She longs to feel the tears she knows are close, to give herself a fraction of relief.

No one knows her on this walkway. She's just another face, another pulse, another lost sole in this city of millions. She doesn't have to pretend. She doesn't have to be the unaffected and always held together Sergeant. She doesn't have to be anyone else in this moment other than Olivia Benson.

She angrily turns her head to the sky. The wind doesn't relent. It is brutal and harsh against her face and fingertips. Her premature tears freeze to her lower lids as the icy breeze smacks her in the face. She doesn't back down, she takes it, staunch and solid against the unforgiving night sky. The moon's reflection ripples on the Hudson River unfazed by her courage and her need.

 _She's nothing special. The moon, the sky, it's seen it all._

The open water is deep and silent in its power. Only matched by the expanse of stars and darkness above her.

She squints hard, trying to focus on the stars in the distance; they are unmoving and stagnant in the hold of the velvet unknown. Thousands of light-years away they burn brightly, complex masses of hydrogen and helium, but here on the island of Manhattan their brilliant efforts go unnoticed.

 _Things disappear there in the solitude of nothing,_ she thinks. _The dark matter swallows it, removes it from existence. That's it job. See how easily stars and planets and entire galaxies can evaporate?_

She purses her lips unforgivably tight, her ears ring loudly.

 _What's once more thing?_ She thinks.She desperately wants to float without the burden of gravity. Let it take her weight, support her, guide her, if only for a sweet second of brevity.

Suddenly her insides are boiling and she can't help the unexpected howl that expels from her body.

"Fuck you, Elliot!" She screams into the void. The cold laps against the pier, its force bends tree limbs nearby. They threaten to break against the wind's answer to her pain.

The next gust swallows her voice completely.

"Fuck you!" she screams again, standing her ground.

She feels reckless and the sudden outpouring of agony makes her recoil instantly. She doubles over. The tears no longer have her cheeks to keep them in their rightful place. They slide briefly down her face before the strength of the wind's current pushes them sideways, smearing them across the expanse of her features and into her hairline.

She can't catch her breath. She feels a sudden stab of pain in the hollow spot above her heart. The pang throbs powerfully. She smothers the area with the palm of her hand.

 _This is what it must feel like_ , she thinks. The ache is so isolated and severe she's sure if she looks down she'll see blood seeping through her fingers.

 _This is what it feels like to take a bullet._

After seeing so many of her comrades take one, she had always wondered.

Now she knows.

She winces, a groan leaves her lips as she pushes onto the wound harder. This isn't the relief she was seeking, but it calms her nonetheless. Ease washes over her.

She glances down to inspect the wound, to assess the damages, but her sweater is dry, the creases between her fingers are not sticky or stained red. Her body shows no signs of trauma. She pulls at the material, inspecting it further.

The spot where the phantom bullet pierced her skin is diminishing in ache. The throbbing gradually lessens and soon it disappears completely.

She stands, the light of the moon casts shadows onto her palm. She spreads her fingers wide, looking for any trace of gooey red. When she finds nothing, she flips it over to inspect the other side.

Nothing.

The fighting words she screamed moments ago pull at her still. He pulls at her.

Jesus.

"Leave me alone! Do you hear me? Elliot!"

As soon as the request blares from her lungs she doubles over in pain once again.

It's almost as if her words have ricocheted off the moon and hit her square in the chest.

::::::::::

Once he decides to find her, it takes him three days.

He can't believe it's that easy.

She is there in the park, sitting on a bench near the playground. Olivia is there. He can see her with his own eyes, and unlike all the other times over the last five years where he's manifested her into likeness he knows this time it is not a mirage. She's been living isolated in his mind for so long that it's surprising to see her as flesh and tissue and breathing.

Objects surround her: tangible things like trees, and grass, and the laughter of children. If he could have dreamed any possible scene for this to occur, it would be this. She would be here, surrounded by ease and contentment.

The air around him is thick with anticipation. Now that he sees her he doesn't know what to do, how to act, how to approach her. She looks like she's in a different universe, unaware, like the outside world isn't strong enough to poke through the invisible force field that keeps her secure and perfect. He wants to keep her there, just like this.

He sees her eyes dart around as she scans her surroundings. He feels like a coward for ducking his head and turning his back so she doesn't see him.

Fuck feeling like a coward, he _is_ a fucking coward.

He's inserted himself back into her life by connecting with Munch, and though it's not directly to her, he can't guarantee she won't hear about it through their former colleague.

He couldn't ask Munch to keep his inquiry between them. He had long lost the platitudes of his former colleagues when he disappeared.

But true to his inability to mind his own business, Munch had subtlety offered the location Olivia's been taking her late afternoon lunches nowadays.

 _Fuck!_

His emotions and drive to see her have led him to this spot and he doesn't even have balls to talk to her now that he's here.

He starts to leave when he hears her voice carry through the space they share. The endearing cadence stops him in his tracks. She is speaking smoothly and even. She is encouraging with her words and then he hears the unmistakable noise of her laughter.

He whips around and his eyes settle on her. She's kneeling in front a young boy, her hands on his shoulders. The boy's tiny hands are grasping at strands of her hair. She is speaking softly to him. A diaper bag rests next to her on the dirt, close to them. She is buttoning his jacket, and the realization hits him hard.

Olivia is a mother.

He can't tear his eyes away from them.

So this is what Munch was alluding to when they spoke. He'd told Elliot not to worry, that she had something now that made her happy. He had assumed he meant she had a man in her life; well an adult man, at least. It seems that he was right in some sense.

His eyes focus on her face, her smile, and he feels it directly in the center of his heart. It's not intense. This feeling she brings from him now, her smile, her son's smile – it warms him from the inside out.

Olivia is a mother.

Finally.

Olivia is a mother.

Finally the universe has righted a wrong.

Finally he has a reason to thank God.

She must be laughing a lot these days. It seems to come so easy to her, it agrees with her. It's evident on her face, in her body language. This is a woman who is happy. This is a woman who despite the horrific ordeal she went through is glowing. She is glowing and bright and happy.

He'll never be able to encompass her ability to push past the darkness. She is strength and resilience incarnate.

Her son looks happy, too. _Of course he would be_ , Elliot thinks. His mother is the epitome of compassion and love. There is no doubt in his mind that her child knows this. No doubt that he wakes up every morning feeling her unconditional love.

The ache and isolation disappears as he watches them together. He feels his lips turn up at the corners. He can't help himself. Watching Olivia Benson as a mother makes him feel joy in the deep, deep recesses of his body.

He watches her son throw his head back in innocent giggles when Olivia scoops him up, wrapping her arms tightly around his upper body. She turns slowly, allowing his lower body to dip and rise against the air around them as she spins them in circles. Her moments create an impenetrable force field; a tornado of genuine laughter and love.

After several minutes, she releases him softly to stand on the gravel beneath them, but he clings to her. He buries his face into her neck and her hands smooth down his back soothingly. Elliot watches as her eyes close in contentment and his heart swells.

He closes his eyes, retaining the image he just witnessed to memory.

He's wanted this for her.

He's wanted this for her for so long.

He pulls his hands from the pockets of his jacket, wiping the moisture from the corners of his eyes.

Suddenly, he wants to move into her line of vision. He wants to see her, for her to see him, but his feet might as well be concrete blocks. He doesn't have the heart to ruin this for her, to ruin this moment with her son. When she sees him she will have questions. Hell, she might ignore him all together, or tell him to "fuck off." He's not sure how she will react to him. He doesn't know her anymore, and he realizes with a heavy heart that he doesn't belong in this moment with her.

He's been out of her life, and that's where he needs to stay.

He'd done what he had set out to do in the days following his acknowledgement of her ordeal with Lewis. He has found her and she is ok. She is thriving. He has no stake of claim to her any longer.

He runs his palm down his face roughly. It's late in the afternoon now and the sun is starting to disappear behind the skyscrapers on the west side of the island. There's a calm in him now. He feels peaceful, restful, languid, bittersweet.

He wants to stay, to watch her in this moment. He wants his last memories of her to be of this. He wants to remember her smile, the way her eyes light up when her son laughs against her skin.

He wants to breathe it in, let it take his breath. She is… She is so beautiful that it breaks his heart.

He turns his prying eyes away and with heavy feet and an even heavier heart he walks back down the tree-lined path, knowing it will be the last time he walks away from her.

::::::::::

He needs a beer, maybe several beers. He doesn't want to go there. The last several days have wreaked havoc on his senses, emotions, and body. He has enough experience to know that in his state, one drink will send him down the rabbit hole. He doesn't want to feel numb, not when for the first time in years he suddenly feels alive again.

He doesn't want to go home, so instead he walks.

He cuts across the city as the sun finally descends and a carpet of black engulfs the sky. He's missed it here. He's missed the hustle, the street vendors, the lights on the buildings so tall surely they touch the moon. He's even missed the smells, and it's a thought that makes him scoff. He's been away for so long. As he walks the city streets, his hands in his pockets, his trench coat flapping in the subtle wind, he can almost feel her next to him.

They're walking shoulder to shoulder, their steps aligned, in just like they were for over a decade. The tapping of her stride is almost audible. If he turns his head he'll catch her profile. He'll notice that her bangs are long enough to be tucked safely behind her ears now, and he'll be able to see her eyes. Maybe he'd even see a slight smile when he makes a joke about the cabbie arguing with his apparent girlfriend across the street. "Do you think she's pissed cause he charged her for the ride?" he would playfully suggest out of the corner of his mouth.

The background of Manhattan accompanies him on his walk, gives a hymn to his movements. He's a different man from the last time he walked these streets. Years gone has softened him in a way. He's cognizant of loss of the insurmountable irony of timing, of circumstance. There are still so many answers to his questions that need seeking, but he won't leave here again. He knows this. He will watch his children swiftly move into the next phases of their lives; he will be there for marriages and grandchildren. He will watch them grow into the capable and caring human beings Kathy raised them to be. He will do so proudly.

Seeing her today has changed him. It's unexpected in its suddenness, but it's not surprising. She's always been a force within him, even when there have been thousands of miles between them. He must be a better man now; not just for his family but also for himself, for the life he intended to lead all those years ago, for the years ahead of him.

Maybe just knowing that Olivia is on the same island with him will bring him comfort going forward. Maybe that will be enough to soothe him. Her happiness is pivotal to his survival in this world and now that he's seen it, now that it's a tangible image in his mind he can breathe easier. He has to do better for her too, for the memory of them.

He knows he'll never be able to let her go completely. She's too embedded into him, too much a part of who he is as a man. Her pull didn't wane when he disappeared from their partnership. If anything, it made it stronger. But he holds onto his new-found knowledge, the images of her face in the park today, and he knows that he owes her so many things. If he can grant her any sort of peace by squashing his selfish need to be in her life, he will do it.

::::::::::

It's been raining since Monday. The dark clouds that block the sun's rays are heavy with saturation. They swirl in circles above the city's tallest buildings, dropping fat drops of burden onto Manhattan's inhabitants. Everything the water touches becomes a shade darker. Blue umbrellas are now black, red ones now crimson. Taxis dawn a deeper color of yellow lacquer; denim goes from functional to uncomfortable.

Olivia stands confidant and almost stoic as she crosses back uptown to The Highline entrance at 23rd and 10th to meet Fin and the rest of her squad. The weather suits her mood and it makes her limbs feel heavy and restless. It's still early, the light of the sun absent, and it looks like nothing will penetrate the thick clouds that loom over the island today.

News trucks and television reporters line the streets. A crowd is gathering on the sidewalk under the walkway, hiding from the rain and also unable to detain their curiosity for what is unfolding on the pathway above them. Olivia pushes through the umbrellas aggressively on her approach, her badge not carrying the pull it normally holds in the surrounding chaos.

"I heard the girl was burned," Olivia overhears form a voice behind her and she sighs, disgusted. Everyone is focused on the gruesome details. _Vultures._ It's a case that will dominate the news cycle for weeks. She can practically feel 1-P-P's breath on her neck.

The temperature drops slightly as she climbs the stairs two at a time. The rain mats her hair, but she is unfazed. Her strides are short and quick as she approaches her team huddled near the body covered by a large gray tarp.

She doesn't wait to greet them, or to be notified of any developments after she took the call. Olivia leans forward and lifts the side of the tarp and sadness instantly penetrates her.

She closes her eyes and lets out a shaky breath.

The girl can't be older than fourteen. She's stripped down, beaten, and burned. Fresh pink and blue marks angrily trickle from her chest and neck down each one of her limbs, only to be interrupted by discolored patches of skin where she was burned. Even the dark pigment of her skin doesn't hide the affects of the trauma she endured. Dry blood is crusted on her upper lip, stomach, and thighs. Her black hair is matted in red.

Olivia's stomach involuntarily clenches.

Now she understands why everyone, even her seasoned detectives are standing away from her. Nobody wants a second look, not when it's this horrific. Olivia straightens and turns on her heels when she senses Melinda behind her.

Warner was always the bravest of them all.

"Please tell me the sonofabitch left us something."

Melinda sighs, shaking her head.

Olivia lets her head fall back – wrenching her gaze upward in distaste. Her intuition was right; years of experience and hundreds of crime scenes confirmed this case was going to rock her, knock her off balance.

 _Like she needed that on top of everything else she was fighting internally._

Instantly the thought causes remorse. She shakes her head downward, trying to rid the selfish thought from her mind. This young girl died a horrible death. Her family, at this early hour, doesn't even know that their daughter is gone. She doesn't have the right to make any of this about her.

"What do we know?" she asks, snapping back to the scene in front of her.

Melinda lowers slightly from her knees bringing herself closer to the girl's body and Olivia sinks next to her.

"Liv, all I can tell you is that she suffered. None of the wounds are post-mortem. She was alive for all of it."

A lumbering sigh leaves Olivia's lips before she whispers, "God damnit!"

Her head falls forward. Her index finger rises to the spot under her lower lip and she pulls it between it and her thumb before peaking her head through her bangs at her old friend.

"You're sure?" she asks.

Melina nods. "I'm afraid so."

"Time of death?"

"It's hard to say. My guess is between 3am and 5am, this morning. "There's no way she was killed here, Liv. There would be evidence of the beating she endured everywhere.""

The Sergeant nods.

"Dump job."

Olivia takes a glance back and scans the scene. Normally, it's a highly populated area, even for this time of the morning. Someone had to have seen something. There are cameras everywhere. This guy may have been brazen, but he was also stupid. She was going to get him. She was going to put that animal in an 8x8 metal cage where he belonged.

"Was she raped?"

Melinda regretfully nods again. "Signs point to several months or years of sexual abuse."

 _Jesus._

"There's something else you should see." Olivia refocuses her gaze onto Melinda as she carefully rolls the victim over to the left exposing her shoulder.

Olivia gasps when she sees the scaring. She bends down once again, to get a better look. Her fingers ghost the scar tissue, careful not to touch but unable to keep herself from reaching out over the inflicted area. She purses her lips together briefly before turning to head to the direction of her detectives.

"Fin, pull every last frame of video you can from the cameras on the path, and canvas the businesses in the area. Someone saw something. Find it!"

She didn't wait for a response before turning to Rollins and Amaro. "Rollins, run the MO through ViCAP. Nick, you stay with CSU and make sure they turn this place upside-down for anything this bastard could have left. I mean anything. I want no mistakes in the chain of custody."

She doesn't wait for them to acknowledge her orders before turning back to Melinda with fiery eyes.

"Anything?" Her eyes were pleading.

"She has a scar on her right knee, could have had ACL surgery. Based on the scaring I'd say the surgery was done within the last two years."

Olivia sighs. Two years? That wasn't a fucking lead.

"I know it's not much, but it'll help you identify her if you need to, after you narrow the possibilities."

Olivia pulls her lips chastely to the side of her mouth.

"I'll know more once I have her on my table, Liv," Melinda offers.

Olivia bobs her head. "Ok, keep me posted."

She leaves the scene, walking quickly through the mass of bodies still ogling the dramatic details of the crime. Her phone vibrates hard in the pocket of her trench. She ignores it. How is she supposed to brief the Chief of the horror she has just witnessed?

That scar.

 _He's a serial._

 _Many girls before her have met a similar fate._

 _Many girls._

She sinks into the worn leather of the unmarked sedan, the feeling of horror physically lining her features. The blood pumping through her veins is unforgiving and powerful.

Her heart is unrelenting.

 _Thump. Thump. Thump._

She slams her palms into the steering wheel.

When it brings her no release she pounds on it again. And again. And again.

Her phone vibrates once more and this time she pulls it to her ear without thinking of what she'll say, how she'll answer their questions.

"Benson."

She's trying to catch her breath as she listens to the rant on the receiving line.

"Yes, Chief."

Her mouth hangs open waiting her turn to speak.

"Yes."

"We are on it."

"I understand."

"I promise you, I will find this guy."

Her head dips forward, casting her hair across her face. She's too tired to care.

"No," Her eyes are wet when she responds to his next question. "No," she repeats.

In her fifteen years on the force she's seen many gruesome acts of violence. But this… this was disgusting and impossibly bold.

She hears her last name across the line and it snaps her back into reality.

"No, I can't explain it, Chief. I've –"

She thought she'd seen it all.

She lets out a shaky breath, the images of the young girl burned into her mind.

"I've never seen anything like this."

::::::::::

"Stabler." His voice is gruff from days of silence.

He hasn't spoken to another human since he's seen her. He knows it's silly and fucking rude honestly, but even now he doesn't want to break the spell of her. His knuckles are healing, and he wants to live forever in her contentment. He wants to drown in it, let it encompass him, fill his lungs, swallow his breath.

It's not like he has much good to grasp at these days. His life has been a whirlwind in his return. Thankfully, the only one affected by the relentless storm thundering inside of him so far has been him. He's miraculously managed to keep everyone close to him far away and out of his shit.

His apartment is dark and careless in its physical appearance. There are clothes strewn about, over the back of his couch, that uncomfortable chair Maureen talked him into buying a few weeks ago. His bills sit untouched begging for a response, and he's not having any of it. It can all wait.

There's no voice on the other line, so he pulls it from his ear to study the screen for answers. _Unknown number_. In the pit of his stomach he knows it's The Bureau.

He clears his throat and repeats his name into the receiver again, more forceful this time.

"Stabler."

"Elliot," the answer on the other line is short and heavy.

"Dickens?" Fuck.

"Look, I don't have time for pleasantries. Are you sitting down?"

Elliot wipes a hand down the expanse of his face roughly. What the hell could James Dickens possibly want? It's been weeks since he's reached out. Not since he's been back, and that was merely a courtesy call to insure his former agent wasn't losing his mind now that he was back stateside.

Elliot smirks at the thought. If Dickens could see him now. Jesus.

This is going to be bad news.

 _It was bad, Elliot._

Kathy's recent words ring in his head.

No. He shakes his head dislodging the statement from his recent memory.

"No," he replies. "I'm not sitting, but we both know that's not going to stop you from telling me something I don't want to hear."

"You're right," James admits, laughing.

He wants to tell him to fuck off for laughing, and for stalling. He's had enough bad news this week to last the foreseeable future.

 _Surely God recognizes that. Doesn't he?_

"Let's have it, James."

He hears Dickens exhale roughly against their connection. He's stewing and hesitant. Elliot shouldn't have answered the call. He could have spent another night engaging in dreams of optimism and bullshit, like everyone else whom call this magnificent asshole of a city home.

He's gotten really good at the dreaming thing. They are the only things that have kept him sane. He rightfully acknowledges the dichotomy of that but he doesn't care, and refuses to let the realization sit long.

The dreams – well, the _fantasies_ are new. Well, _newish._

He's dreamt about her before, long before he saw her in the park, long before he'd returned to the states. These were different. There isn't hard case to blame this time. He can't justify these from spending endless hours in a car next to her. Those times he was unguarded when she came to him. She was always cloaked in the mystery of night, appearing only when his body relaxed beneath soft sheets and his breath evened out in sleep, the smell of her still notable on his skin.

Now they happened in the light of day, when the sun's rays are still prominent and on display. They are happening while he is awake, while life swims around him.

She's swimming around him. Through him. In him.

There's nothing specific to them, never anything significant — other than they are together, and she's smiling. They've just finished dinner, and while she read Noah a story he'd start clearing the table. In the dream he gets as far as turning the faucet on, but he always feels her hands on his hips before the basin fills with warm soapy water. He can feel her grin against his neck as she fists his shirt and pulls it from the waistband of his pants. Air temporarily cools his skin before the heat of her fingertips return.

She always pulls him across the threshold to the bedroom with a smirk on her face, not giving a damn that he's smeared her lip-gloss.

"Stabler." Dickens' tone drips with warning, and it snaps him back to the present.

"We found Azmi."

 _What?_

Elliot lurches forward.

He pushes his cheek into the receiver of the phone.

"What do you mean you've found her?" His mind is reeling.

The blood drains from his limbs. It pools in his temples, turning his vision crimson.

He breaths into the silence, frustrated.

"Dickens, talk to me! Is she alive?"

Several moments pass still with no answer from the other line.

"Fuck," Elliot whispers harshly into the air around him. "Just tell me." His voice cracks.

His hand is wiping at the beads of sweat that have formed on the back of his neck.

"Just tell me." He's pleading a bit now, no longer content to hang in this conversational limbo.

"She's gone, Elliot. I'm – I'm sorry."

He wants to put his fist in something hard. He wants to slam it onto the counter until the wounds on his knuckles are fresh again. He steadies his breath as best as he can. He pinches the bridge of his nose just to keep his free hand busy and away from the counter.

"Who?"

"We're not completely sure, yet, but we've alerted all known parties."

"Where?" Elliot's eyes glass over, and he transitions into detective-mode.

He somehow manages to keep himself in check as he awaits his answer.

"Her body was found on The Highline yesterday."

 _No._

"The Highline? You have to be fucking kidding me."

It's a surreal experience to feel your heart break inside of yourself twice in ten days. He feels his body shutter involuntarily. He stands and begins to pace the narrow hall that leads to his bedroom.

"Was she raped?"

"Elliot…" Dickens begins. Elliot already knows the answer.

"Watson? His guys?"

"We think so. Left the classic trademarks of his victims."

Elliot groans. "He burned her?"

"You already know the answer to that."

He doesn't want to think of her as a victim. For the longest time he held onto the fact that her body had never been recovered.

Azmi Kahn.

Images of the young Pakistani girl flash in front of him. She was a symbol of hope and renewal to him.

He had pulled her and her parents out of Northwest Pakistan thirty-six months ago. The area had been decimated by the cruelty of war. Militants on both sides captured young woman, ruthlessly pulling them from their families, adding them to their broads of prisoners. The fathers, sons, brothers were killed. The girls were beaten, starved and raped.

Azmi had been abandoned when both her parents were killed. It was a miracle she had escaped without detection. For days she trudged through the dust and sand without water or shelter, until she came upon a handful of refugees on the outskirts of her now collapsed village. Mercifully, they fed her and allowed her to stay.

Even amidst of their generosity, Azmi lived in daily danger. She was not their flesh and blood, if any solider discovered their group she would be the first one taken – and offering of life to spare others.

It wasn't until Ghada and Essa Kahn found the young girl that she was truly given a second chance at a real life. They were American citizens who had returned to the region to help remaining family members flee. Both of them were doctors and Elliot knew them, knew the compassion they held to help their people. Multiple times he had warned them to leave. Multiple times they had refused.

But now with Azmi in mind, the Kahn's turned to Elliot for protection and he gave it to them willingly. He couldn't save all of them, but Azmi had a real chance. So he pulled some strings. Many strings. Illegal strings. He arranged for her asylum and personally watched the three of them board a thirty-three hour flight back to JFK and into the arms of safety.

Well, at least he thought they were safe.

Azmi had been taken in New York four months after arriving. She was twelve at the time.

He had worked the case from overseas as long as he could, but in the end there had been little leads, and eventually bigger players in the sex-trafficking ring he was investigating began to surface. Three and a half years after he first arrived in the dessert, his team shut down a convoy on its way to the border. He released sixteen girls from the chains that held them inside. Sixteen women now had another chance.

Years of work had finally paid off, but the victory was bittersweet. They captured six men in the bust, but their main target, Daniel Watson, the slimy motherfucking leader of Rotherham sex-ring, wasn't among them. He had vanished, like the coward he is – he simply disappeared into the haze of the dessert's sun.

He knew instantly that Azmi's kidnapping was tied to Watson. A personal fuck you to Elliot, for the several months of pressure he applied to his operation. He had no doubt about that. He also had no idea where he was keeping her. He could have moved her back across the ocean from Manhattan, easily. Criminals don't give a fuck about red tape.

Shortly after Azmi's disappearance they'd tied Watson's exploits to Britain. When she wasn't located among their victims he was initially relieved. Then he started to think about the types of men who probably had her.

Even after he returned to the states he had kept in touch with her parents. He visited them in their home. He let them thrust recent photos of her into his hands. Her smile was so brilliant in each of them. He allowed their hope to keep him alive, and they clung to any information Elliot could provide. No detail was ever too small.

He had always prayed they would find her alive. She was a fighter after all. Her name, Azmi, traditionally a boys name in Arabic, means exactly that. _Fighter._

"Was there a scar?"

There are more moments of silence before he hears Dickens tongue click thickly in his throat. He's struggling with the news he's about to share.

"Yes. Same spot as the others."

"What number?"

"Elliot. Don't do this."

His knuckle slams against the tile that covers the counter. The one he serves Eli dinner on.

"What number!"

"Elliot, knowing will not bring her –"

"God damnit Dickens, I swear to God –"

"43."

The air leaves him.

43.

She was his 43rd.

He stews on it. The numbers take several shapes in his mind.

"There's more, Elliot."

Elliot closes his eyes languidly; he's suddenly too tired to continue the grim conversation.

 _What more could there possibly be?_

He doesn't speak, but Dickens continues anyway.

"The responding officers… you know them."

Elliot sighs, knowing the other shoe is about to drop. Her name is on his lips in the split seconds that follow.

"Olivia."

The last time he'd said her name aloud was a few hours ago when he imagined her knees on either side of his hips, straddling him. He had pushed the soft stands of hair from her eyes as she sank down onto the length of him.

 _Olivia._

The silence on the end of the line goes on for far too long.

"Yes," Dickens softly affirms. "Sergeant Benson and the 1-6 have lead on the case—"

Elliot's head jerks.

"—the Feds will probably take over, it'll be ours, but for now —"

"Sergeant Benson?"

"Yes, she's the Commanding Officer of the 1-6"

It's a complete mind-fuck to feel pride and complete sadness the same moment. He doesn't know if he should celebrate Olivia or cry for Azmi and her family. His emotions swing radically within him and he feels disconnected from his body. Numb.

His voice is hoarse when he hears himself speak again.

"What happened to Cragen?"

"Retired." Dickens answers simply before continuing, unaffected. "Taking a trip around the world or something else stupid and fucking cliché."

Elliot clicks the phone closed. He has all the information he needs.

His eyes close, too overwhelmed for reality.

He takes a deep strangled breath. His throat is dry and his tongue clicks searching for the wanted moisture. He picks up a long forgotten glass of water and downs it quickly. He gasps when the last drops spill into his mouth. He strides to the sink and fills it again. His gaze bores through the back-splash behind the faucet, the glass grasped tightly in his hand.

He feels her hands on his hips again. Her touch is familiar to him now, even if it isn't real. This time, he stops her and turns in her hold before she has a chance to distract him with her heated hands and hot mouth.

She's standing in front of him, smiling. There's a new badge latched to her belt, on her hip. It's bright and untarnished. Her hair is pulled-back tightly in a bun that rests effortlessly on the nape of her neck. He brushes the unruly flyways from her temple, and back into their rightful place. Her eyes hold a playfulness he isn't familiar with, and her eyebrow cocks to the right, questioning. Even in their uncertainty her irises dance.

He knows he's on borrowed time. She's going to disappear soon. She's going to vanish in front of him, just like Azmi did on that city sidewalk all those months ago.

He briefly wonders what it would be like to sit across from her in Cragen's old office, her new one, instead of next to her like he did for over a decade.

He watches her face slowly fade before him. Only a few seconds pass before he is alone again. Left alone with the torment of these conflicting emotions.

Those two people, him and her — the mirages of them — whoever they are, are no longer living a life cloaked in guilt or regret. This version of them doesn't have anything resentful between them. There are no words left unspoken.

They exist in another lifetime, a parallel universe out there, somewhere.

 _Somewhere._

Somewhere in the same place Azmi is alive, and attending high school. She has friends, and is looking forward to college. She wants to be a doctor.

Somewhere in another world he's given the chance to right all his wrongs, and even Olivia the person he's hurt the most, has found it in her beautiful heart to forgive him.

He takes a slow sip of the tepid water, deep in thought. The moisture burns his dry lips, but he makes no move to soothe them.

The notion of her granting him forgiveness makes him ache. It's so far-fetched that surely it can't be.

His impending realization makes his blood thicken under the hardness of his chest.

 _And, maybe it's not._

He hangs his head in sorrow.

Maybe it's simpler than forgiveness.

Maybe somewhere out there, in another time, another life, he was given the ultimate gift.

Maybe, there in that other state of being, Olivia smiles against his neck so easily because she doesn't know. She doesn't know the pain of their current reality. She doesn't know what it feels like to be taken and held against her will by William Lewis. She doesn't know the trauma of the Beach House or the Granary. She's allowed him to touch her, to kiss her so freely because in this other place, in another time, she doesn't know what it feels like to turn around and not have him behind her.

::::::::::

tbc.


	5. Chapter 5

A simple note and apology for the absence, thank you for your patience!

JD: Thank you. You're a talented wonderful gem.

Without further ado, let's pick up right where we left off.

::::::::::

The sun is hot and high above the horizon as Essa Kahn stands leaning over the edge of his porch, watering his browning ferns. He lazily sips a glass of cool lemonade. It's an uneventful Wednesday afternoon, the kind that only recent retirement brings, a reprieve still too new to be a burden.

Their new home isn't much to look at. They bought it on a whim, several months ago, a necessary means to an end from the daily agony inhabiting the place they once shared as a family.

The paint on the windowsill is chipping. The tree in the backyard bares another family's history, their initials. But when Essa walks through the screen door he is no longer reminded of a time when his home was sectioned off by yellow tape, designating it and his life on the other side as a crime scene. There's something to be said about that.

The days following Azmi's kidnapping, their home had been taken over by a haze, a waking nightmare, a terrible horror movie, a plot too awful to be realized in the company of their Upper East Side apartment. Neighbors hovered like nosey vultures, covering their gossiping whispers with plates of food and offers of prayers. Their hard wood floors bore thick layers of dust and grime, markings of standard issued boots laced in the accompanying sorrow from the streets.

His daughter appeared to him, surrounded by the same haze in the days and months that followed. Essa saw glimpses of her in everyday New Yorkers; buying a banana and a bottle of water at the corner bodega; tossing a Frisbee on the grassy knoll on a lazy afternoon inside Tompkins Square Park. She never acknowledged him. Not even when he yelled her name from across the street the time he saw her in Chelsea, near the entrance to the Highline. She never answered when he called for her, begged her to come home. She always disappeared in those moments. She faded into tiny untethered particles, allowing the sun's rays to shine through the missing pieces of her. She vanished before his eyes each time.

Vanished into the thin air.

Elliot has tried his best to prepare him and Ghada for the moment that will finally break them. As a parent he's dealt with that notion as best as he can. That includes exuding a brand of optimism that goes against rational thought. But he lives there, holds his wife in that place when her nightmares wake her from even her most seemingly deep sleeps.

Over time words came and went unspoken between Essa and Ghada. The silence of their new surrounding were meant to bring comfort, instead the undisputable background gave a voice to their thoughts, a place for guilt to fester.

They haven't spoken to Elliot in months. The detective tried hard to give them space, only picking up the phone when he had a solid lead or reliable news. Unfortunately, time between those calls stretched longer in length, seasons passed without word, and Watson's trail went cold. So when Essa hears the familiar sound of tires crunching the gravel stones of his driveway, he looks up curiously, not expecting anyone.

Essa twists the nozzle to the right on the hose, cutting off the supply and drops it at his feet. The sedan move its way up the gravel drive, kicking loose pieces into the grass that lines the path. It's missing the urgency of Elliot; the vehicle's moments are almost lazy. An insurmountable feeling of dread to settles over his entire body.

He would have called with good news, unable to wait.

The car comes to an unceremonious halt. The dust from the gravel billows slightly before settling on the hood of the car and the metal rims of its tires. Elliot hesitates his exit from the vehicle, taking several deep breaths from where he sits rooted in front of the steering wheel. Essa sees him wipe his palm down the length of his face, once, twice, attempting to erase the signs sadness and guilt bring. He clutches the wood post next to him when Elliot finally opens the door and faces him, and braces himself for what he knows is coming.

His eyes slowly drift close.

They say when you're about to leave this world, your life flashes before your eyes. There are ambiguous displays of unrealized second chances, of everyday occurrences, and deep wishes. It's cliché for a reason. It happens. It's not his own mortality that has brought him to the forefront in this moment; it's his daughter's.

Images of her dark eyes and small hands flash in secession beneath his eyelids. He's back at their old apartment, where their hardwood floors shine, unaffected. Ghada is there humming a soft lullaby while his daughter sleeps peacefully, draped over her lap in her tiny bed. He hears her laugher, the first time she called him Daddy.

Essa sees flashes of moments that he'll never experience in this lifetime; her walking across the stage at her high school graduation; opening an acceptance letter to Harvard Medical School, his alma mater. He watches himself lift her veil as they stand at the threshold of a beautiful alter. He sees the love in her eyes when she hands him his granddaughter for the first time.

He doesn't know how long it takes Elliot to reach the porch. He doesn't remember calling for Ghada. He doesn't remember her sobs, or the words Elliot used to tell him that God had taken his daughter from him. He doesn't remember Elliot holding him as his knees gave out, or the sound his glass of lemonade made when it slipped from his grasp and shattered onto the wood panes below. He doesn't remember the sweet smell it sent into the space around him, it's vapors mixing into the billowing sadness.

All he remembers is being split open from the insurmountable ache in his heart.

::::::::::

43.

She wants to go back to a time before the number 43.

The simple angles, lines, and curves of the ordinary numerals haunt her. Olivia has become possessed with their new importance. She's drawn the lines of those numbers countless times since she exited the High Line. She's perfected the multiple techniques to create them, the soft half moons of the 3, the tight angle of the point in the 4. She wonders which way he carved them into the girls' skin. Did he etch the 4 in three separate lines? Or two, combining the shorter of the two segments in one stroke? Was his hand steady when he did it? Did he hesitate when the punctured skin began to bleed under the blade of the knife?

She knows he carved the numbers into the thin skin of her shoulder while she was still breathing. It's one of the only pieces of information Warner was able to give her after the autopsy. The notion continues to make her skin crawl.

She hasn't slept, but she's sure if she did the numbers would pervade her even there, like they do throughout the minutes and hours she's awake.

43 steps from the parking lot to the back door of the precinct.

43 seconds for the coffee pot to percolate.

43 leads they do not have.

Even the papers are obsessed with the gruesomeness the numerals create in their grouping.

 _Who is Girl 43?_

 _The Search Continues for the Identity of Jane Doe 43._

 _A City in Fear: Will There Be a Girl 44?_

Olivia steps into the lobby of the one-six looking worse for the wear. She's still in yesterday's clothes, and the silk of her blouse irritates her skin, hangs off her in ways it shouldn't. Silently she longs for the forgotten days of dark denim and functional tops. Her brown leather jacket still hangs stubbornly in her locker, longing for a chance to be apart of the action once more.

She moves quickly past the Desk Sergeant, mumbling a quick greeting. She does not allow herself to count the number of steps it takes her to reach the elevator.

Behind its doors, she sinks against the wall and takes a swig of her steaming coffee as the lift starts its slow climb.

She pulls her phone from the pocket of her blazer, her lips tugging upwards as she eyes the photos of Noah that Lucy sent her last night. He's cradling the stuffed elephant Nick gifted him the day he was christened. The soft fibers are clutched in his small fingers, his face pressed squarely into the belly of the animal as he peacefully sleeps.

Guilt quickly overshadows her momentary joy. She hasn't been home since she left the scene yesterday morning. She's missed another bedtime. She craves the smell of his hair, the soft indents the dimples in his cheeks create.

If they were anywhere close to a break in the case she'd at least have something to hold onto. Maybe then, she'd be the one to rock him to sleep tonight. Maybe then, she'd allow the images of her son to warm her a few moments longer.

Rollins and Amaro had scoured a ten-block radius of the lurid scene. No witnesses. Melinda had then called her into the medical examiner's room this morning to quietly tell her about the lack of trace evidence. Her nails had been recently clipped, her body rinsed prior to being displayed on the elevated walkway. The area where her body was discovered was slightly out of range of security cameras. There's no visible record of him coming or going.

She's at a loss, and the burden makes her bones ache.

 _43_

She squints her eyes against the crime scene images, the barbaric carvings left on the young girls skin, and absently runs her fingertips across her chest, just above her breasts, where she too was marked, burned and branded by the hot metal of her own house keys and a metal hanger. They're barely noticeable now several months after, but sometimes the raised pieces of skin itch like they do now, under the silk of her blouse. They remind her. They motivate her.

 _There will not be a 44._

It's quiet in the squad room when she steps off the elevator, and she briefly wonders where everyone is before she remembers the terse text she sent Fin an hour ago telling him to get Rollins and Amaro to do another canvas.

She knows it's a long shot, but maybe under the guise of night they'll catch a lead, find a witness who's returned, who was there two nights ago. The darkness has a way of emboldening.

She stops at the entrance to her office, startled when she notices a man sitting across from her desk, his back to the door, to her.

"Excuse me, can I help you?" she asks, not making an attempt to close the distance between them. She scans the bullpen once more and notes they are alone.

She hears him chuckle from the threshold, but he doesn't turn to greet her.

"Sergeant Benson," he states plainly, the syllables of her name rolling off his tongue easily; like it's not the first time he's said them aloud. She doesn't recognize the voice behind the man, and it peeks her curiosity further. She closes the door and moves purposefully to her seat behind the desk and stands across from the mystery guest.

"Can I help you?" She asks again, his face doing nothing to stir memories of a previous encounter.

The man shifts in his seat and crosses his legs before answering, smugly. "Doubt it."

Olivia's mouth opens slightly, taken aback by his blunt miscalculation. She voices her disapproval with a short groan that resonates from the back of her throat. The case, the meeting she just left with 1-P-P, are wearing her patience thin.

"And yet here you are in my office," she says dropping a stack of folders from her bag onto her desk before taking a seat. They land with an audible smack. It's meant to rattle in the slightest sense, but the man's gaze never wavers. He doesn't make a move to speak to her, or answer her initial question.

She leans over slightly, and eyes him. "There must be something you want."

"I just wanted to see if the rumors were true," he states plainly – like he knows things about her, and those things are common knowledge. The hair on her arm rises under the wrinkled silk. Her gut clenches, showing the first sign of an unsavory hunch.

She studies his face, trying to place him: mid-forties, healthy, fit looking. His sandy blonde hair has a slight touch of gray here and there, mostly around his temple. His suit jacket is too tight throughout his shoulders; there are no creases on his forehead, or lines around his mouth.

 _He rides a desk, s_ he thinks, knows.

"Well, are they?" she asks, feeling embolden by her observation. She is too tired to swap niceties with a Suit.

He pinches his bottom lip with his fingers, but keeps his gaze focused on her, assessing, leering. "It's too soon to tell, really."

Olivia can't stop her laugh from escaping.

She watches as his smile slowly develops, his lips pulling upwards in the corners. He's amused with her. He pries his eyes from the Sergeant's perplexed face and moves his glance to the wall on his left.

Her awards hang there.

His statement stews within her, but she stays silent as he peruses the numerous plaques that cover the wall. They showcase her years of service, her accomplishments, her closing rate. They're testaments to her dedication, her drive. Her duty. She doesn't interrupt his curiosity.

"That's a lot of metals ya got there." He pauses. "Earn all those by yourself?"

Olivia glances down thoughtfully, but doesn't oblige him with the details. "Some," she answers.

His gaze doesn't waver from the wall, and she watches as his eyes flick back and forth taking it all in.

After several moments, his eyes return and settle on her.

"It's gotta be hard, doing this job on your own."

"I'm not alone. I have my squad. They're the best."

"But no partner?"

Olivia zeros in on him, desperately itching to get to the bottom of this unwanted visit.

"I've had a few," she answers before switching tactics. "But that's not why you're here, so do us both a favor and just tell me."

"You know why I'm here, Olivia." Hearing him use her first name causes her to jerk slightly backwards. His tone is different now. It's menacing, but he does his best to mask it with a shy grin.

In her gut she knows why he's here. She's not surprised. Just taken by how quickly the FBI's decided to swoop in.

"Are you going to say it, or am I just to assume?"

"Look, I'm sorry to be the one to do this. But we have history with this case, with this victim. One of our own rescued her from Pakistan. He's at the Kahn's right now breaking the news."

Olivia feels her physical reaction to his admission. Her face tightens and she knows she's unwillingly confirmed far too much.

He ignores the glare she's giving him, her flaring nostrils, and continues evenly.

"We appreciate what you've done here, truly, but with all due respect you don't have the experience to handle a case of this magnitude. You haven't even identified her."

"It's only been thirty-two hours!" Olivia feels sullen and inadequate even with the truth on her side. She must have raised her voice. Amaro's appeared, and is looking at her curiously through the window that shows into her office. She should have shut the blinds when she shut the door.

She hasn't had enough time. She can't willingly hand this over to the Feds. Not yet. She won't.

"It's actually been thirty-six."

She scoffs. Not even the brief notion that handing the case over will allow her to wrap her son in her arms tonight extinguishes the fight in her.

Olivia leans back in her chair, feigning defeat. "At least tell me what you know."

"You know I can't do that, Sergeant."

"I see, so I'm just supposed to hand it over to you, no questions asked? You've got some nerve." Her words are combative, but her tone is even and measured. Her voice almost sounds coy as it echoes off the walls and plays back to her. She knows how well this tactic works with his kind. This isn't her first rodeo with these clowns.

The man in front of her laughs. "He was right about you."

She jerks back, surprised. "Excuse me?"

"Look, there's nothing you can do. The decision has already been made, from an agency with much more pull that SVU."

 _Who the hell is this guy_?

"Look, Special Agent…"

"Dickens," he answers, taking the bait and restoring her confidence.

"Dickens," she says leaving out his title. He doesn't need a reminder that he out-ranks her.

"Let us help you. Regardless of your past with the victim, she was found in Manhattan. I _know_ Manhattan. This is a world away from Pakistan. This agent you say rescued her… I've worked joint forces with the Bureau dozens of times."

She lets out a breath before continuing, knowing what her suggestion is going to require of her and her squad, her son.

"Let us work the case together. With his background of the victim, and my experience working tough cases here… maybe we'd work well together. Close this in record time – give 1-P-P the ending they want."

Dickens smirks. "Oh, I have no doubt about that."

The mystery surrounding him unnerves her.

"You working with Porter?"

He laughs at her suggestion and the fire within her rises higher.

"Dean Porter? Fuck no. What you two didn't keep in touch?"

She stares calmly at him from across her desk. _He knows her._ Knows her beyond the information he could easily get in her jacket. She glances down at his smooth hands, not a scar or callous on them. He may think he knows her, but this guy doesn't know the first thing about hunting and putting a rapist away. He's clearly never seen a day of action in his entire career.

She narrows her vision and slips into the familiar role she takes when she wants suspects to believe she's on their side.

"Good to know. Didn't agree with his tactics," she smiles shyly at him, "and _that_ hair."

Dickens' smile widens. "Sergeant, you're everything I thought you'd be."

"Am I?"

He nods, and she continues. "So, you know how good I am?"

He sneaks a peek back at the wall of plaques and nods again, "I do."

"So…" She's staring at him like a hungry rookie, begging him to allow her the chase she's seeking.

He leans back in his chair. "Her name is Azmi Kahn, went missing a few years back in Manhattan."

Olivia rolls her shoulders back and pushes her face forward, hanging on his words.

"Why isn't there a missing person's report?"

"The family was in the program, we took lead. Too risky."

She nods, deep in thought. "Her parents?"

"Found her in Pakistan, took her in."

"And the Agent? What's his connection to the family?"

"He knew them, saw them in the village, they got close." He waves his hand into the air back and fourth, dismissing the relationship. "Or whatever."

"You said he was with them."

"Upper East Side. I'll give you the address and call him and tell him you're on your way. He'll get you up to speed on the case, you can interview the Kahns–"

 _Azmi Kahn._

Olivia is standing and heading for her locker before he has a chance to finish.

"Text me the address," she calls from the threshold of her office. "I know you already have my number. You'll let yourself out?"

Moments later she pushes through the door of the locker room and grabs for her emergency change of clothes and her travel toothbrush.

She pulls the dark denim from her go-bag and quickly strips at the bench in front of her, tossing the rumbled silk and slacks into the forgotten cavern of her locker.

She finally feels comfortable, new life fills her lungs as she strides up to the mirror, and faces her reflection head on. She knows it well. Over the years, through the tough cases, she's realized things about herself in it. She's watched people she cares about realize things about themselves here, too.

She wonders what she'll see when this case is closed.

She drenches her toothbrush in white paste, the cool water momentarily easing the dryness in her throat.

She hears the door swing open, but she doesn't lift her head from the basin.

"Liv."

It's Nick, and she knows he's going to have questions for her after she hastily barked a few orders at him on her way to change.

"Did you find something already?"

He slowly moves closer to her.

"No, I haven't run her name yet. What's going on?"

She spits out the remaining paste from her mouth and turns to him.

"What are you waiting for? We have the identity of our Jane Doe. I need every piece of information you can find. Now, Nick."

"Where are you going?"

She eyes him, annoyed at his lack of urgency, his questions.

'To her parent's house."

"I'll come with you."

She puts her hand up signaling her answer before verbalizing it.

"No. I got this."

"Liv, I can–"

"No. Nick." The harshness of her tone surprises her, and by the look on Nick's face, it's surprised him too.

This case has been tough on everyone. She sees the exhaustion, the defeat in her former partner's and friend's eyes. The fight in her eases momentarily.

"Look, I need you here. I have to go," she says pulling a spare blazer from the back of her locker. "Call if you find anything."

::::::::::

Dickens was wrong.

The Kahns didn't live on the Upper East Side, nowhere close. They'd moved months after Azmi was taken. The sloppiness of the man was alarming and annoying.

Olivia called Amaro to see if he'd located a new address. He hadn't. So instead she reached out to an old friend with pull.

" _Dana, it's Olivia."_

" _Well, well Ms. Benson. To what do I owe the pleasure?"_

" _I need a favor."_

" _Right to the point, God love ya. Go on, shoot."_

By the time Olivia exited the interstate and navigated the curling country roads of upstate New York, the sun had fallen completely, bringing life to a burning accumulation of stars. Up here, without the brightness of the city's skyscrapers they are illuminating and clear; their brilliance only stifled by the full moon that hung high above her.

She takes a brief moment to admire them as she stands next to her car. It's quiet up here, and without the blockade of buildings the breeze moves freely. A small ounce of trepidation pools in her stomach. The quiet is unnerving.

Olivia pushes past her initial unease and struts to the front of the house and knocks on the frame of the screen door. Seconds later a woman appears.

Even blanketed in by the surrounding darkness and the encroaching shadows from inside the house, Olivia sees the evidence of grief on her dark skin. The woman's irises are bloodshot red, the skin under her eyes raw. Olivia resists the urge to push open the door and embrace her.

"I have a son," she wants to say to the broken woman in front of her. She wants her to know she understands the misery living within her. Olivia would be inconsolable if she ever found herself on the other end of this encounter. With the image of her son sleeping safely fresh in her mind from earlier in the evening, she lets out a shaky breath, and remembers why she's there.

"Mrs. Kahn, I'm Sergeant Olivia Benson." She pulls her badge from her belt and raises it the woman's eye line. "I'm with Manhattan's Special Victim Unit." Olivia studies the woman's face, waiting for the recognition to appear, it doesn't.

The realization hits her hard. _God damn it, Dickens._ He hadn't told anyone to expect her. She walked into this cold, blindsiding the parents.

She clears her throat and takes a small step away from the door so the other woman can get a good look at her before she continues, "I'm the one who found Azmi."

Several wordless moments pass between the two mothers before Olivia takes a step closer to the screen and continues.

"Can I come in and ask you a few questions? Would that be alright?"

She lets out a sigh of relief when the woman steps back and opens the door.

"My husband is in the other room, I'll get him."

::::::::::

Essa Kahn sits in the shadows of their living room. The sun peaked over to the windowless side of the room a several hours ago and he finally feels somewhat comfortable in the relief of the welcomed dark.

He doesn't remember how he made it into the rocking chair he's sitting in now, but here he sits, empty. The chair has a heavy creak, and Essa allows the soft rhythm of it slow his thoughts. Azmi used this same chair to rock her baby dolls to sleep years ago. She'd pile their large wool afghan across her lap. The deep orange flecks in the cream colored threads reminded him of Pakistani sunsets. Of sand and sun.

He hears Azmi's voice then.

"Do you ever miss it?" They were situated high and comfortable on a chair lift hovering the expanse of the Rocky Mountains, on their first trip as a family since returning to the states.

His daughter's voice pulled him from his trance, and he turned slightly to examine her. She was turned away from him, her eyes settled on the encroaching canopy of Blue Spruce. Her lashes dotted in moisture from the soft snow that fell around them.

She looked so grown sitting next to him. All nativities were erased from her features. Her eyebrows stretched out straight above her somber gaze, emotionless. Her long legs dangled off the seat of the chair lift.

Essa doesn't know what he would have done differently in that moment had he known this would be the last Christmas they'd spend together. He'd like to think he would have scooched closer to her, draped his arm across the tops of her shoulders, pulled them closer. He'd like to think that he would have reassured her that the world was not such a bad place, that there were reasons to still believe; that she was the reason he continued to believe.

He'd tell her that despite biology, she was his daughter, and that he would never stop loving her. He would never stop being her father. He would tell her he was proud of her strength and her kindness. Proud to call her his daughter.

But he hadn't known. And those precious admissions went unspoken.

Instead Essa allowed the seriousness of her question to tug the edges of his smile downward.

"Sometimes," he answered honestly.

Azmi took a deep breath next to him, her features rested, though not completely at ease.

"What is it?" he asked then, searching her features for a clue. He didn't find any, and her admission that followed broke his heart into a million pieces.

"Daddy, I would have died if we stayed there."

"No," he answered his daughter immediately, looking her directly in the eye. "I would never have let that happen, Azmi. Never."

"Essa." Ghada's affected voice travels to him from where she stands a few feet away. His cheeks are damp. He swipes his thumbs under his eyes before turning to face her.

The sorrow in her features mirrors his. He doesn't know how they are going to get through this evening, the memorial, a new investigation, or the rest of their lives.

"The police are here."

He nods, acknowledging that he's heard her.

"More FBI?"

She shakes her head. "A Sergeant from the city."

He reaches out and takes her hand in his, brushing his thumb across the top of her hand.

"Elliot still here?"

She squeezes his hand, observing the redness in his eyes. "I think he's out back," she answers.

He leans in and softly kisses her cheek, the dried moisture on her cheek salty on his lips.

"Ok, I'll get him."

Ghada cradles her husband's face in the softness of her palms, and swipes her thumbs softly under his eyes, pushing the remaining wetness away.

She musters the best smile she can before releasing him to join the Sergeant from the city who waits in the next room.

::::::::::

There's a deep sense of foreboding in the room where Olivia stands, waiting. She's doing her best neglect the heaviness that surrounds her to no avail. She attempts to distract herself by weighing the different outcomes that her visit could produce, but she doesn't get far. So she takes a deep breath and switches tactics, recounting the questions she formulated on the drive into a detailed list in her mind. Once again the lumbering quiet unnerves her.

She begins to pace slowly about the room.

 _The Fed must have left_ , she thinks. She only noticed two cars in the driveway. Both common civilian vehicles, neither displaying the traditional signs of police business. Dickens probably didn't clue him in either. Then again, he did give her a faulty address, so maybe this is just another way of toying with her, keeping her at bay for a little while longer. He certainly didn't count on her resourcefulness.

Olivia moves deeper into the room and settles in front of a wood shelf, where numerous photos and knickknacks are strewed about haphazardly. There's a thin layer of dust resting on the tops of the frames, and she wonders how long it's been since they've really been seen, or if they've been strategically placed in the back of the room so it's easier for Azmi's parents to move throughout their day without the bitter reminder of a better life.

She picks up a small frame nestled behind another a large one and smooths her hand over the edge of it, cleaning it off.

It's of Azmi and her father, Essa. Their figures are prominent in the bright thick coats they're wearing, set against a white washed landscape. There's an ease to their faces that allows their smiles to reach all the way to their ears. The photographer managed to capture the soft snow falling around them, and Olivia imagines tipping the picture upside-down in her hands, turning the memory into a real life snow globe.

She raises her fingertips to the photograph and lightly brushes the glass over their wistful faces.

 _What would happen to me if I ever lost Noah? Who would break the news to me? Would I ever forgive them?_

She's unable to reckon the nervousness that moves within her. Olivia's done this before. She's stared into the eyes of hopeful parents and delivered the worse news they'll ever receive. She's decimated lives with her words, changed their trajectory. Over the years she's developed better techniques, the best lines to say, but it's the one burden of the job that never gets easier with practice. Even now, knowing she's not the person saddled with the task of breaking the heartbreaking news, there's a distinct trepidation that trembles over her heart.

She briefly wonders if any of the parents she's delivered the news to over the course of her career have truly forgiven her. Do they still resent her?

Olivia closes her eyes against the emotion that's suddenly building there.

"I took that picture."

Olivia rotates on her heels and faces Ghada Kahn who's reappeared. There's a deeper sadness lining her features, and Olivia instantly feels guilty for snooping, for allowing herself the liberty to peruse their family memories without permission.

"It's one of my favorites."

Olivia smiles and returns the photo to its previous place on the shelf. "It's beautiful."

Ghada smiles softly and bushes her hands down the length of her skirt, trying to smooth out the wrinkles that have settled there.

"Essa will join us in a minute. Would you like something to drink?"

Olivia shakes her head politely declining.

"Mrs. Kahn, what can you tell me about the last time you saw Azmi?"

"Ghada. Please call me Ghada, Mrs. Kahn is my mother-in-law."

Olivia smiles softly at her attempt to bring humor into a scenario it has no business in, and sinks into the chair next to the one Ghada has eased into.

"It was a Tuesday. I packed her lunch, handed her the books she left on the kitchen table. I kissed her goodbye." Moisture returns to Ghada's eyes, the small pools hover dangerously to the edge, threating to spill over, but she holds them there defiantly. Her strength moves Olivia in a profound way, and it's only seconds later she feels her own eyes dampen again.

"I told her I would pick her up after school. I didn't like that she insisted on taking the subway to class, but she insisted, wanted to be like the other kids."

Olivia reaches over and takes Ghada's hand in her own, but she doesn't speak or offer words to ease her heart. She knows there are none.

"Me picking her up was our compromise. I was twenty minutes late," Ghada admits, her voice cracking. The tears that were delicately balanced moments before spill over their barrier and slide down her cheeks.

Olivia clutches her hand tighter.

"Did anyone at the school see anything? Did anyone talk to her? Did she walk off with anyone?"

Ghada shakes her head, allowing more tears to release and join the others that have disappeared under her chin.

"We called the FBI immediately. I knew this wasn't some random act. We knew they had found us."

Olivia nods, sharing Ghada's hunch.

"Who's they?"

"Watson. His men."

Olivia feels a soft vibration in her jacket pocket. She hastily removes her phone and quickly glances at the Caller ID.

Amaro.

She quickly silences the call.

"I'm sorry about that," Olivia offers before continuing, taking Ghada's hand once more. "Why are you so sure it was him?"

Ghada clears her throat and straightens where she remains seated. She leans in closer to Olivia and the void in her eyes startles the Sergeant.

"You saw what they did to her. It was retaliation. We escaped. Nobody ever escapes."

Olivia stays silent, turning Ghada's words over and over. _Retaliation. No one escapes._

"What can you tell me about Watson?"

"He's a monster."

"Did the FBI have any leads?"

Ghada sniffles softly, and nods. "A few, but nothing became of them."

Olivia nods thoughtfully, giving Ghada a moment to continue.

"You know," she says. "As hard as this has been for Essa and me, it's also been very difficult on Elliot. He risked everything to get us out of there. _Everything._ "

The pocket of her jacket vibrates again. This time Olivia ignores it completely.

Olivia takes a slow, determined breath, and pulls her hand from Ghada's, noting the uncomfortable clammy feeling that suddenly lines her palm.

She wipes it awkwardly down the rough denim that covers her thigh.

"Elliot?" The syllables ripple off her tongue in a familiar cadence that spooks her, catches her by surprise.

Ghada nods. "He's outside with Essa now. You should meet him. He'll be more helpful to you, to the investigation than I will."

Olivia can barely register what Ghada is saying to her and she mentally scolds herself for allowing the distant past to pull her focus.

 _There are probably a dozen agents with the same name, Olivia. This is merely a coincidence, a horribly ironic one, but it's only that._

She wants to laugh. _Who says God doesn't have a sense of humor?_

Olivia briefly wonders how she'll work this case with another Elliot. When she says his name, will the tone of her voice match the tone she used with _him_ all those forgotten years ago?

 _I'm Sergeant Benson with Manhattan SVU and this is Special Agent Elliot, no last name._

Ghada stands and takes a few steps toward the back porch before turning back to Olivia's distracted form.

"You know," she says slowly, bring Olivia's focus back to the conversation. "He used to work in Special Victims too I think, years ago."

Olivia's eyes widen and she stares completely befuddled at Mrs. Kahn. She doesn't need a mirror to know all the color has drained from her face. Her once wet palms now abruptly dry, start to itch.

"In Manhattan?" Olivia can't hide the desperation in her voice. Her eyes beg the oblivious woman to stop talking and plead for her to continue in the same helpless look.

"Yes, I think so. Maybe you've work with him?"

"Ah, I'm—" Olivia throws her head upwards to the spackled ceiling above her, searching for answers. It stays silent. Just like her, it doesn't quite comprehend what she's asking it.

"I guess it's a possibility," she continues. She hears her tongue click loudly against the roof of her mouth in its desperate search for moisture.

"What's, ah — " She takes a deep breath and stands. "What's," she pauses hesitantly, equally frightened to ask the question on the tip of her tongue, and the possible answer that follows.

"What's his last name?"

Time slows as Olivia stands, rooted in the foyer of Ghada and Essa Kahn's home, waiting. The seconds drag into a marathon of minutes, hours. She hears the heavy leaves brush the surface of the adjacent bay window lethargically. The veins that surround her heart circulate blood through its valves slowly – preparing an impending surge.

Despite the beads of sweat that have appeared at the nape of her neck, her skin cools.

She watches as Ghada walks purposely to the shelf Olivia stood at just minutes before. She scans the numerous frames thoughtfully before plucking one from the back corner.

Olivia's mind stills. She lets out a shaky breath and rolls her shoulders back. She stands stoically and strong, like a mighty tree hunkering down, preparing in the last moments of calm before an impending storm. _Whoever is in that photograph_ , she thinks, _whoever it is…_

She doesn't allow herself to finish the thought.

Her eyes widen, her confidence lowering several notches as she counts the steps Mrs. Kahn takes on her approach. When she's within a few feet, Olivia swallows the urge to yank the picture out of the woman's grasp.

'This is him," she says smiling sincerely, unknowingly handing over a loaded weapon.

Olivia's eyes dart frantically over the familiar lines and edges of his face, the unmistakable blue waves of his eyes. The breath leaves her immediately.

"Stabler," Ghada says unceremoniously; like what she's just said doesn't have consequences. Like her words haven't just changed the life, the trajectory of the woman standing before her.

"His name is Elliot Stabler."

:::::::::

tbc.


	6. Chapter 6

Wow. It's been a long time. Truthfully I sat on this chapter for several months before posting because I wanted to make sure it was right, and that it did the situation, their history justice. I hope I was able to do that for you. More chapters are finished. I'll post shortly.

If you feel so inclined to review please do.

It's about to get interesting….

::::::::::

The crack of the screen door sounds behind him; somehow Elliot ignores his innate response, his decades of curiosity seeking impulses, and makes no moves to investigate.

He's hypnotized by his surroundings; the ease of the wind, how it mixes seamlessly with the chirping of nearby crickets. Above him stars shine unabashed this far from the lights of the city. Essa steps next to him, and leans onto the railing. A comfortable silence settles between the two men. After a few moments, Essa clears his throat and Elliot nods once, acknowledging him but holds onto his silence a few breaths longer.

Elliot's voice is gravely when he finally speaks, "Are you ready for this?" He is talking to Essa, but his words are also a question aimed at himself. His stomach flutters under the buttons of his oxford shirt. He resists the urge to loosen his tie.

"I guess we have no choice," Essa answers. _We._ Elliot releases the breath he didn't realize he was holding.

"I want answers. Justice. However we get there…" Essa continues before his voice trails off.

Elliot pulls his face from the brilliance above and locks eyes with his friend. Together they've witnessed so much. So much depravity. So much senseless violence. In a weird way he feels as connected to Essa as he does to Olivia. They're bound together by grief.

"I promise you. I will find him," Elliot says. Determination settles in the crease of his forehead. "I promise you," he says again, this time more forcefully.

"I know you will, Elliot. You have Ghada and I's full support. And trust."

Relief washes over Elliot briefly.

"Azmi's too," Essa adds, looking up at the sky. "Where ever she is."

Tears sting Elliot's eyes, but he blinks them away when Essa reaches out and rests his palm on his shoulder.

"Come inside," Essa says pulling him toward the door a bit. "Ghada said there's someone from the city who wants to talk to us."

Elliot nods, leaning into the sturdiness of the wood railing in front of him. It reminds him of the night Kathy told him about Olivia. Heat pools in his temples, a shutter ripples up his spine. When he peers down at the surface in front of him he expects to see his blood there like the night he ended up at the beach house. He takes a deep breath, his eyes still focused downwards in the smooth, unmarred wood. "Give me a minute?" He asks, needing to collect himself.

Essa nods and leaves him alone in uncertainly of the dark.

::::::::::

On the other side of the wall Olivia is trembling. Her face is drained of its normal color.

She squints her eyes and dares to look more closely at the photo in her palm, the one Ghada handed to her only moments before, causing the glass to fog in reaction to the proximity of her breath.

"So?" Ghada asks simply. "Is that _him?_ "

The frame wobbles in her clutch.

 _Her Elliot._ Before she can answer a loud noise interrupts the spell billowing around her. Olivia's eyes jet downward. The photo she was just holding lies in pieces on the floor, it's glass casing shattered.

Hastily she kneels to the ground and begins to pick up the pieces, wincing when she clutches a shard too tightly in her bare palm. "I'm sorry," she says, stumbling over her words, pawing at the remaining displaced colorless fragments. "I'm so sorry. I'm sorry." Her knees ache at the awkward position she's forced them into.

Ghada mercifully kneels next to her. "It's ok," she says taking the pieces of broken glass, the chunk of busted frame from Olivia's hands.

"I'll grab the dustpan."

Embarrassment creeps under Olivia's skin. She shouldn't be on the receiving end of understanding and consoling words. She's the one who does that; not the other way around.

A slight vibration begins to pulse from the inside pocket of her blazer. She pulls it out and stares at the familiar name with scrutiny.

Amaro. Again.

She hears a door open near the kitchen Ghada scurried to just moments before.

"Nick," she says tersely into the receiver, her eyes glued to the entrance of the kitchen. "I'll call you back."

She doesn't wait for his reply before snapping it shut and dropping her phone back into her pocket. She takes a few steps forward. From the kitchen she can hear hushes tones, and then the unmistakable timber of a familiar voice. Her flesh reacts immediately. It morphs into tiny peaks and valleys, mirroring the apposing forces that are churning within her. Fear and joy. Fight or flight.

She takes a deep breath, dropping her eyes to the uneven floorboards that sustain her. They are dark, shiny. If she squints hard enough she'll be able to make out her unsettled reflection in the rich walnut lacquer. She lifts her gaze and allows her eyes to move cautiously over the room.

"Sergeant Benson," Ghada calls walking towards her, a dustpan in her hands. "This is my husband Essa." She says gesturing to the man following closely behind her. Olivia squares herself and faces the couple. Somehow she manages to find her voice. "Mr. Kahn," she starts, scanning the area for _him_. He is nowhere to be found.

 _Maybe he left,_ she thinks as she closes the distance between herself and the Kahns'.

 _Maybe even five years later he's not man enough to face me._

 _Maybe it wasn't his voice I heard after all_.

"I am very sorry for your loss," Olivia starts again, pushing the doubt and confusion from her mind. She extends her hand to Essa. "My name is Olivia Benson with the Manhattan Special Victim's Unit. I'd like to talk to you about your daughter. Could we sit?"

Suddenly a figure emerges from the hallway. Its shadow is long in length. It's broad and unyielding even in ambiguity. It sinks into the divots, the grains of wood, the spaces in-between the planks where everyday dust has settled.

Olivia's hand is still outstretched to Mr. Kahn, but she doesn't move to retract it. She's frozen. "Yes, please have a seat." Essa says, shaking her hand, his eyes gesturing to the living room. "Elliot will be joining us in just a second, there's more room in there."

The shadow gradually gets shorter. It's moving towards her, hesitantly. She can audibly hear her wrist watch tracking the seconds between them. Her blood pumps in tandem with the second hand of the dial.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

"Elliot, this is Sergeant Benson with Manhattan SVU."

Olivia allows herself to breathe when she hears her name and his, paired together after all this time. Stillness settles over her. Her pulse slows. Her mind remains excruciatingly quiet as she waits for the moment of impact. The moment she gave up on years earlier.

Tick.

Tick.

"Liv?"

She jerks at the familiarity of his voice.

Elliot's body lurches forward and for a moment she thinks he's going to run to her. Smother her. Smother her shock, with his. He stops abruptly and stands a dozen feet from her. His eyes are wide and she feels them move up and down the length of her, assessing, questioning. Her foot scuffs the floor in its own hesitant approach. He mirrors her actions taking two steps closer to her.

Tick.

Tick.

Olivia hears him take a deep breath and unconsciously her gaze moves to his face. The recognition in her body is immediate. She watches his body register their reconnection. The incandescent flecks in his irises spark, turn richer. Her eyes damped in response.

"Do you two know each other?"

The voice registers in her ears, but she doesn't answer. Neither does he.

"I'm sorry, is there a prob—"

"Yes," she hears him say, stopping Essa from questioning any more.

She lets out the breath she was holding, the standoff, the tension abruptly extinguished. She pulls her bottom lip into the grip of her teeth and tugs at it, stewing in the surrounding silence.

He takes the opportunity to move a few inches closer to her before speaking again. "Ghada, Essa — give us a minute?"

The pair quickly nods and ducks quietly out of the room, and out of sight, leaving them alone for the first time in five years.

Tick.

Tick.

She hears him chuckle slightly, and Olivia allows the corners of her lips to turn up at the corners nervously, his action contagious.

"God, Liv..."

He draws his elbows upward and settles his palms on his hips, making himself larger than life.

"Of all the ways this could have gone down…," he continues, his face relaxing into the absurdity of their surprise reunion.

"You imagined it another way?" she asks quickly. The retort is uncalculated and surprising, even to her.

"Yes," he offers plainly, unfazed. His palms are still fused to the tops of his hips. His gaze narrows on her. Olivia rolls her shoulders back and visibly straightens, strong and solid against the unforgiving power of his eyes.

"You're the Fed that swooped in and took my case out from under me?" She says pulling the focus back to the case. She shakes her head disapprovingly at him, driving her point home.

"It was _my_ case from the beginning, _Liv_." Her skin breaks out in tiny goosebumps. The familiar way he says her name rattles her.

"Forgive me," she says, tilting her upper body in his direction, "you see this is the first I'm hearing about that part of the story."

"Olivia."

She leers at him in a silent warning before answering replying. "What are you even doing here?"

"Could ask you the same thing."

"We found her." She explains. "On the —"

"I'm back." He says cutting her off. He widens his stance, reinforcing his statement with his size. "I'm back," he says again. "For good."

 _For good._

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Olivia's throat feels like sandpaper. She can feel her heartbeat in her temple.

She's relieved when silence gets the better of him. "I was in Pakistan. Special Ops." Elliot explains quickly, before awkwardly clearing his throat.

She tears her gaze from him and looks about the room. "I know." She says keeping her eyes away from him. "Dickens told me the situation. But he didn't mention it was _you_."

His shoulders slump forward. "I wanted to call you, tell you I was back."

Olivia pulls her gaze back to him. Honestly lines his eyes, but it's not enough to unravel the anger coiling inside of her.

"But you didn't." She whispers.

"I didn't know what to say."

"Oh." She scoffs. She shifts her weight from side to side, but still the awkwardness builds. "Jesus. It could have been anything, Elliot," she starts. Another wave of anger slides over her again. "Literally anything would have been better than nothing. The not knowing was – " she brings her hand to her mouth and shakes her head, unable to continue.

"Can you just sit, let me explain," he pleads, the volume of his voice too loud for the small confines of the room they occupy.

"Stop," she says dropping her hand from her face and holding it lazily in front of her chest, her palm open to him. She takes a shaky breath and moves a step to her right, removing her body from his intensity. The mounting heat inside of her flushes her cheeks. She desperately wants to open the door, step outside onto the porch.

"I did not come here for this," she says before giving into the retreat her body seeks. She swings her body towards the door. She only makes it a quarter of the way around when his voice slides over the panels of timber to where she stands, her hand already on the handle of the screen door.

"I'm sorry," he says his voice catching.

She stays silent, allowing his words to wash over her. She doesn't turn to face him.

"If I could change it –" He starts his voice catches again. She hears him take a few steps closer to her before she stops him with her voice, "You don't get to do this." She says into the door. She barely finishes speaking before she forcefully pulls at the handle and steps outside into the cool night. Relief is immediate but short lived. She knows he's going to follow her.

Her former partner crosses the threshold and closes the remaining distance between them swiftly. Olivia holds steady. Her eyes momentarily drift closed when she feels his heat on her back. Her hand begins to throb.

"You're bleeding!" she hears him say. Her eyes move downward. Drops of blood have settled into the wood railing in front of her where he hand lays. She remembers the frame then, the glass from only a few minutes ago. He startles her when he pulls at her elbow, giving her no option but to turn and face him. He raises her hand to his chest and inspects the superficial slice in her palm closely.

Suddenly a shadowy memory of the last time he held her hands, all those years ago in the locker room flashes against her eyelids. She sees her blood circling the drain as his fingers working the sticky substance from her palm, from the creases in her knuckles. Her pupils reemerge in a raging glare of warning.

"I'm fine," she whispers fiercely through her teeth. She pulls her hand from him and wipes it forcefully down the leg of her pant.

Tick.

Tick.

Her pocket begins to vibrate again and Olivia pulls her phone from her pocket hastily, thankful for the distraction.

"Benson." She speaks into the receiver already knowing the caller.

"Yes," she says cutting him off. "I already know Nick."

She can't help but feel like she's betraying both of her partners; speaking to one while standing in front of the other. She lets the line hang in silence for a few moments longer before she answers another question. She turns her shoulders away from Elliot when she does.

She curiously peers over her shoulder when she hears Elliot leave the porch and enter the house.

 _What is he doing? Is he leaving? Again?_ She thinks before Nick's voice pulls her back.

"Yes, I'm here with Detective Stabler, we –" She stops when she feels Elliot take her injured hand in his own. His palm feels cool against the heat of her wound. Nick is still speaking to her, but she is transfixed by the gentle way Elliot wipes her cut with a wet rag before placing an awkward bandage over her cut. He smooths it delicately against her skin, securing it in place. "Don't want it to get infected," he says barely over a whisper, not disturbing her phone call. He takes a step back after he inspects his work, giving her space once more.

She hears her name on the other end of the phone.

"We're fine," she answers hesitantly. "He was just about to brief me on Azmi's case."

She peers over at Elliot and notices his shoulders soften.

"I won't be long," she says reassuringly to her current partner.

There's a hint of jealously lining Elliot's eyes when she disconnects the call. It's something she recognizes easily, and regretfully relishes in.

"That your partner?"

"Yes." She says fanning his jealously. But talking to Nick snapped her back into reality, and suddenly her focus is blindingly back on Azmi, and the case at hand.

"We're not doing this, Elliot."

"It's important." he says, but stops his eyes suddenly fixated on the tops of his shoes. "We should talk," he says his eyes returning to her face. He's affected by her presence more than he led on. She likes this more than she will admit.

"Now? You think we should drag out the last five years right here? Now?"

She sighs and allows her head to dip forward a bit before raising it again and looking him square in the eye, all business. She knows she is right, and he'll comply with her rational.

She takes his silence as confirmation.

"Now tell me what you know so we can catch this son-of-a-bitch."

::::::::::

He takes a sip of the dark liquor from the tumbler resting loosely in his grasp. The smell of it settles on his lips. The burn of it welcomed as it tunnels down his throat and pools in his empty stomach. He runs his hand down the length of his face and huffs out an aggravated breath. The physical action of it relaxes him almost immediately.

He swirls the brown liquid lazily for a moment; the ice cubes crackle as they fight to hold their consistency in the warm intoxicating broth.

It hurt like hell to see her.

He hadn't expected that.

The look on her face makes his chest ache.

He tilts is head back, empting the glass into his waiting mouth before he reaches forward seeking the bottle, a refill.

After they agreed to table the personal things between them, he called Essa and Ghada back into the living room. He sat across from Olivia and struggled to keep his eyes off of her. Even as Essa recounted the horrors they witnessed at the hands of Watson's men, his palms still inched to touch her. He wanted to rub his thumb over the insignia on her new badge. Brush the hair from her eyes. He wanted to take her somewhere quiet, maybe under the large Oak tree in the back yard, and there amongst the crickets he'd tell her how sorry he was for not being there when Lewis took her – that he would do anything to turn back time, anything for a chance at forgiveness.

Instead he watched as she hung on each word Essa and Ghada uttered. She scratched notes into a small pad of paper, never breaking eye contact with the couple. At the appropriate times when he chimed in, she turned to him, business-like and focused acknowledging him before asking her next question to Essa and Ghada.

He watched from the doorframe as she hugged Ghada gently and shook Essa's hand when they'd finished. She promised she would call them early next week with an update and then crossed the threshold; walking right passed him without the slightest acknowledgment.

He followed her wordlessly to her car. He stood next to the door after it clicked close, and watched as she disappeared down the gravel driveway without looking at him. She didn't even glace at him through the rearview mirror.

He raises the glass to his lips and takes another long drink.

He wasn't lying earlier when he said he had imagined many ways in which their reunion could have happened. He exhausted the best-case scenarios only a few weeks into his assignment abroad; the ones where she smiled easily at him, and touched his arm reassuringly when she said she forgave him. He spent _years_ weighing the other possibilities, the most probable ones; where she screamed at him, told him she regretted ever meeting him.

Though still traumatic, those were not the ones that sliced the deepest. In his darkest moments, all those miles away from her, on the other side of the world, he would allow himself to believe that when he finally was granted a chance to explain, to beg for her forgiveness, she didn't remember him at all. In those scenarios she always stared blankly at him, without the slightest hint of recognition. She showed him no emotion, even when he dropped to his knees in front of her. Even though he begged her to, she was still unable to place him in her life. It was like he, they, never existed.

On those nights he always awoke with his t-shirt drenched in sweat, a phantom aching in his knees. Of course it was the one that he feared the most; it was the outcome that he most rightfully deserved.

This time when he takes a sip of his drink it burns considerably less. He's hell bent on emptying the brown liquid and refilling his glass when the angry trill of his phone pulls him from the task.

"I should kill you for what you did today," he says, upon seeing the caller, his words biting into the receiver.

Dickens laughs loudly on the other line.

"Oh come on, Stabler. Are you telling me you didn't enjoy your little star-crossed reunion?"

"I didn't want it to go down like that, you prick!"

"Beggars can't be choosers."

"I wasn't, I didn't –" Elliot stops mid sentence, and collects himself. "I would have appreciated a heads-up."

"I tried to starve her off," Dickens explains. "But that one's like a dog with a bone."

Elliot slams his open palm into the surface of the table, causing liquid in his glass to ripple. "That's beside the point," he says. "And don't you talk about her like that!"

"Look, what's done is done." Elliot closes his eyes, his insides are steaming but he nods his head, agreeing.

"You're going to get another chance," Dickens states plainly. Elliot's eyes snap open. "Seems as though your reputation together proceeds you."

When Elliot doesn't immediately respond Dickens continues. "You and your _partner_ are working Azmi's case together."

"What do you mean, together?"

Dickens signs audibly at his question, clearly annoyed.

"It means what I just said. You will work the case at the behest of the FBI, with Sergeant Benson and her squad. You're going to be temporarily reassigned to SVU."

"Who approved that?"

"Does it really matter? It's what you wanted right?"

Elliot's silence answers Dickens' question.

"What's next?" Elliot asks, standing. With the phone pressed forcefully to his ear begins to pace.

"You'll report Monday to the 1-6. Track down leads, investigate them, you know, police work."

Elliot groans.

"I know it's been awhile, but you do remember how this is done, right?"

Elliot's mind is swirling. He's working with Olivia again. She's going to be his partner again.

"Stabler?" Dickens asks, waiting for a response. "Did you hear me?"

"Yes." He bites into the phone answering his question.

"Good. Oh and tread lightly will ya? I hear her squad wasn't exactly thrilled with they received the good news. Don't go in there looking to manhandle it," he pauses, "Or her."

"Dickens I swear to God –"

"Get a good nights sleep," Dickens says coyly cutting Elliot off. And with that the conversation ends.

::::::::::

Olivia sinks into the worn-in cushions of the hand-me-down couch that lives in her office. She wonders how many times Cragen sat in the same place, done the same thing. Along with her responsibilities her admiration for the man has only grown.

After her run-in with her former partner she initially sought the refuge of her own couch, the one that only a few dozen feet from her sleeping son. As she navigated the winding roads from the Kahn's upstate home she willed the wetness clouding her stare away. But somewhere in the thick of upstate New York, a call from her commanding officer derailed her plans.

Her reaction, a breakdown was imamate. But it would have to wait.

"Chief. You can't be serious," she says now, rubbing the worry lines in her forehead.

"I don't know why you're so surprised. I heard it was your idea," the Chief says standing over her.

 _Dickens._

"That was before I knew," she tries to explain. She drops her head forward unable to fathom the trajectory of the last few days, hours.

"Knew what?"

"Never mind," she says shaking her head. "It sounds like it's done."

She doesn't want to let on the effect tonight's events have had on her. Not to herself, and definitely not to her commanding officer.

"It is. You have the weekend to get used to it. He'll be here Monday morning." The Chief walks to the door of her office. "I already told your squad. Talk to Fin; get him on board would ya? I don't have to tell you how important this case is."

"No. No Chief, you don't." She says joining him at the door. "I will speak with him."

"Tonight."

"Yes, tonight." She says through clenched teeth.

"Good. Get some sleep." He says peering down at her quickly. "Looks like you could use a few winks."

She closes the door after him and counts slowly to herself after she hears the ding of the elevator. She feels the pendulum of emotions swinging inside her, but she needs to make sure he is far enough away when they show themselves. She gets to seven before the wetness in her eyes spills onto her cheeks.

She never thought this day would come. There were moments when she pleaded with the universe to prove her wrong. But when he didn't come for her after Lewis, then when would he?

She walks out into the bullpen and stands next to a pair of desks merged together. After all these years, Even in his absence and her promotion, the clunky pieces of wood managed to stay connected.

 _Are ya feelin' sad?_

She closes her eyes when the familiar and unwanted voice registers. Under the weight of her blazer, her scars begin to itch.

 _Thinkin' about someone you're never going to see again?_

She moves her palm slowly over the small fault line that separates the two desks. The action relaxes her momentarily before an unexpected sob racks through her entire body. She lurches forward and braces herself against the edge of his old desk. Tears fall from her eyes onto its surface.

 _You still want him. I can hear it in your voice._

She hovers over the surface of the desk, stifling another sob. Beads of sweat cover her forehead, matting her hair to her temple. _Not here_ , she thinks. Not in the open. Not where her squad sits day after day. Not where she stands next to them as their leader. She straightens and hauls herself into Interrogation One. It's the same place, the last place, she allowed herself to breakdown over him. She braces herself against the door. Soft sobs continue to strain from her. She slides down the length of the door and melts into the floor.

Sometime later, when she falls into the softness of her mattress, when her red and swollen eyes finally close, the sun is already teasing the horizon.

Mercifully she does not dream.

::::::::::

tbc.


End file.
